


imprints

by NymboDerp (nymmiah)



Series: Haikyuu AUs [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - ABO, F/M, Family Feels, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Single Parents, Slice of Life, Slow Build, eventual polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2018-12-30 20:11:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 43,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12116343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymmiah/pseuds/NymboDerp
Summary: Biologically, they were all implanted with the need to procreate. It's social convention to curb this desire since the day of presentation, but it wasn’t until it had happened that Oikawa realised the consequences of such an impulse.In which Oikawa finds himself a father before he even graduated from college.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at writing ABO.
> 
> This doesn’t follow the conventional ABO universes that everyone seems to write about: I’ve structured the society relatively similar to what I think ABO would become in a contemporary society that has a 95% beta population, with alphas and omegas making up the rest in a relatively 1:1 ratio. Society’s historical hierarchy of classes has been mostly abolished, even if there's a trend to give leadership roles to alpha/omega-presenting individuals than betas. It's societal convention to choose omegas over alphas, in fact, because of the historical maltreatment of omegas.
> 
> Characters will be added as they appear.
> 
> This story is wish-fulfillment and an exploration into Oikawa's character as a father.

Across the room, he could see Nanako staring at him with tired eyes on the hospital bed she’d been lying upon for the past few hours, giving birth to the children that she’d carried within her body for eight months. Her shoulder held a fading print of his teeth, no longer a possessive red but that of a dissipating beige.

Her hair was matted with sweat, and her legs were stained with liquids and blood.

“Name them, then--please, leave,” the woman pleaded weakly. “I can’t bear looking at them. I love you, Tooru--but I can’t… I _can’t_ deal with children. Please. Take them away from me, Tooru.”

* * *

Oikawa was twenty-one, and he had two children.

Two small, wrinkly children, freshly born, who were still pink and wet from birth, with little wisps of fine black hair upon their heads and closed eyes.

The smaller one--the older one, she weighed two and a half pounds. The younger one weighed just over that. They were healthy, though alarmingly underweight--typical for twins, the doctors had reassured, especially for female twins.

Their mouths were open, crying out weakly for sustenance, for comfort. They were in the arms of two nurses, women whom he had never met before that day.

The two pink little children smelled like him.

Stumbling forward, Oikawa’s hands were trembling as he pulled his children out of the nurses’ arms.

“Be careful of their heads. Hold them in the crook of your arm,” one of the nurses murmured, ignoring how he snapped at them territorially for shifting his children in his arms. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Words. They were failing him.

He swallowed thickly, nodding. “She _is_.” He said, voice sounding abnormally weak as he stared down at the now-quiet children he was holding. “They both are.”

He’d heard about what imprinting was like. That precious moment when your eyes fell upon your children, and you realised that whatever disconnect you may have had about being a parent to a living being was suddenly washed aside by an all-powerful love for them.

He’d never realised just how _powerful_ the sensation was.

Cradling them carefully to his chest, he bent his head over them, unable to comprehend just how delicate they were within his grasp. The one on the left had curled her little fists. The one on the right had her mouth hanging open, breathing heavily as if trying to figure out how to cry. He drew in a careful breath, lips and nose brushing against the fine dusting of hair on their heads.

He could almost cry at the sound of them breathing next to his ears, so quiet and sweet.

Beyond his own scent, he could smell the sour taint of birth liquids still on them, the oily hints of perspiration and the smell of doctors and nurses all over them. He could smell his-- _no_ , no longer _his_ beta all over them.

He pressed his face to theirs, unable to stop himself from marking his children with his own smell, chasing away everything foreign away from them. Their skin was so infinitely soft, delicate and weak in a way that had him breathlessly _terrified_ that he was going to hurt them.

The strength of how much he _loved_ his children almost swept him off of his feet, unable to comprehend just how dear they already were to him. He’d only known them for a minute, hadn’t even _named_ them yet, yet he could feel something settle in his heart: a realisation that they were _his_ , and that he would live for them now.

“Oikawa.”

The sound of his name made him look up.

“That’s--uh, them?” Hanamaki asked, a smile on his face as he approached. “Sorry for being late. I didn’t expect to be held up by traffic or people trying to scrub me down… But anyway, you know, I expected only you to spawn only one brat. And that they’d be less _wrinkly_.”

Oikawa let out a soft laugh.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Oikawa asked, shifting his right arm when it felt like it was going numb. “Help me hold her. My elbow’s seizing up and I don’t want to--drop her,” his voice cracked at the thought. “Don’t you _dare_ drop her,” he then added, a dangerous hiss to his words.

Hanamaki’s eyes widened. “ _Woaaah_ . I won’t do that! I promise!” He placated immediately, reaching out to awkwardly lift the child from Oikawa’s arms. “Man, it’s like you think I’m an unreliable person… I’ll have you know that I’m _reliable_. Very reliable."

He then paused.

“Uh, how do you hold a kid again?” He asked nervously.

A nurse came over to correct Hanamaki’s hold on Oikawa’s daughter, all the while under Oikawa’s intense scrutiny. He didn’t like seeing how his children were being manhandled, and the sight of his younger daughter wrinkling her eyebrows in mute, unknowing protest had him standing up, walking over to Hanamaki to attempt to calm her down. He couldn't do much, not when she was too little to understand that the hand touching her little lips was her father's, and that the shushing sounds he was making were done in an attempt to quiet her down.

“Ne, they don’t look anything like you,” Hanamaki quipped when Oikawa had finished fussing over the baby in his arms. Smoothing a finger down a chubby cheek, Hanamaki then added, “Where’s the Oikawa charm that I was promised? She looks like an angry little potato, all pink and ready to scream.”

Oikawa couldn’t hold back the snort from escaping him.

“It’s talk like that that’ll stop me from naming you their uncle,” Oikawa retorted, shifting his grip on his eldest daughter when she squealed quietly, still working out how to use her vocal chords.

He still didn’t know what to call her. He’d had months to prepare for their birth, but looking at his children now--the names he’d come up with didn’t seem _adequate_ for such beings. They were beautiful, full of life and potential that Oikawa felt as if--if he picked the wrong name, he’d destroy them. It was irrational. He was terrified.

“I… They look so much like Nanako already.” He admitted a moment instead of dwell upon their names.

Hanamaki glanced over at Oikawa. “Where is she, anyway? Is she being wiped down until she’s presentable or something?”

Oikawa smiled bitterly. “She doesn’t want them. She doesn’t want any of us. You’d think that she would’ve told me, months before they were even conceived that she didn’t want children.” Shaking his head, he then added a sharp, “They’re _mine_ , but they look so much like her.”

“Ah. Sorry to hear that,” Hanamaki said rather awkwardly. “So you two are…?”

“She told me to leave the room with our children. I think she doesn’t want to see any of us again.” Which would be near impossible until after they’d graduated. They had the same major, had selected the same courses to spend the most time together.

“Mm. Well, it’s her loss,” Hanamaki said in an attempt to be reassuring. “Considering how you turned out, your kids are probably going to be _amazing_. What are their names? Have you named them yet?”

“No. I haven’t.” Oikawa brushed his fingers across the soft skin upon his elder daughter’s cheek. “I don’t think Hatsuko works for this little one.”

“It sounds rather generic,” Hanamaki agreed. “Shiori’s a good name, but I don’t think you thought about it?”

“I want to keep Hatsu in her name though,” Oikawa continued, trying not to look too nervous about admitting such a thing.  “It’s the one thing that Nanako and I could agree on. Hatsu-something for our first child.”

“Hatsu, huh?”

Oikawa gently pressed his lips against his daughter’s forehead. “How about Hatsumi? Do you like that name, baby?” He asked her quietly, even as her eyes slid shut and fell asleep as he rocked her gently. “Or Hatsue? Or should we just go with Hajime instead?”

“Those’re all nice names. Apart from Hajime. Isn’t that traditionally masculine? All of them are alarmingly elegant for a kid that’s never even got to blow their nose clean yet,” Hanamaki added with a little grin. “What about this one then? Since we’ve already decided that the other one’s going to be a Hatsu?”

Oikawa glanced over at the baby in Hanamaki’s arms. “I-- I don’t know. Come up with something for me, Makki.”

“Wow. No pressure there, Oikawa. Tell a guy to come up with a name for someone that they’re going to carry for their _entire life_ ,” Hanamaki drawled, looking rather alarmed at having been put on the spot.

“I didn’t say I was going to pick it,” Oikawa pointed out with a smile. “Just that I wanted some ideas.”

Hanamaki paused for a moment. “Uh… Takahiro,” he stated frankly, grinning widely when Oikawa sent him a dirty look. “Just kidding with you. How about Kana? Or… uh, Nozomi? Ryuuko?”

It barely took him a second to decide he liked the names Hanamaki had mentioned. “I like Ryuuko.” Oikawa stated after Hanamaki had stopped suggesting names. “Oikawa Ryuuko… and Oikawa Hatsue.”

Hanamaki smiled. “They’re wonderful.”

“They are.”

* * *

Oikawa eventually had to relinquish his children back to the neonatal unit, watching with almost anguished eyes as nurses took his children away. They had to monitor the children--they’d been born nearly five weeks early, and on top of that, their mother had rejected them. They wanted to make sure that the children were physically healthy, and it was a process in which Oikawa couldn’t partake.

He followed them to where they were put into cribs, watching through a window that made sure that Oikawa had no access to at all to his children.

He could only watch from the outside as his children were left in little glass cribs, surrounded by multiple other babies all of whom had been _abandoned_ in the hospital as if they weren’t loved--

“Oikawa.”

Oikawa didn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of his two girls, lying there hapless and helpless. None of the nurses would notice if there was something wrong with his children until they came around to see them.

Hanamaki had joined him as he stared desperately through the glass at the slumbering forms of his babies, newly born and newly named, allowing him a few minutes of futile staring before gently pulling him away from the glass and towards the hospital entrance.

“We’ll be back tomorrow. And the day after. The nurses won’t let anything happen to them, right?” Hanamaki said quietly.

Oikawa could only nod mutely, trying not to feel like he was abandoning them like Nanako had.

As they got out of the hospital and headed towards the nearest bus stop, Hanamaki turned to talk to Oikawa.

“You know, I’m surprised that no one else was here, ‘part from me. Aren’t you close to your family? I couldn’t help but notice that your parents weren’t here, nor your sister,” Hanamaki murmured. “I mean--I know that you didn’t tell anyone back at school about it, but…”

“I haven’t told them,” Oikawa admitted. “My mother would’ve insisted that we get married, and that Nanako drop out of school to take care of them. You know how Nanako is. How she was. She’d _never_ compromise her studies. I would’ve dropped out instead, because…” For all that Oikawa would pretend otherwise, he’d always wanted a family. “Anyway, my father wouldn’t have been able to handle that.”

When Oikawa had presented as an alpha, his father had had the notion that Oikawa would become a leader of whatever field he eventually joined. That Oikawa eventually became captain of the volleyball team and managed to score nearly top marks across all of his studies had only solidified this belief.

“They’re both traditionalists, huh?” Hanamaki mused. “I kind of get why you wouldn’t say a thing. Still--why didn’t you tell your sister?”

Oikawa couldn’t help the wry smile from appearing on his face. “I didn’t want to prove her right. That I’d get someone knocked up, just like she’d been.”

Hanamaki burst into laughter.

Oikawa grinned back at Hanamaki, thankful that his friend was around to keep his mind off of--everything.

Laughing and joking as they climbed into the bus to head back to the college they said at, it didn’t take them very long for them to return back to their dormitories.

“Hey--I’ll be heading back to my place. Make sure you get some sleep tonight, alright _captain_?” Hanamaki asked, adding his former title in a sing-song way.

Oikawa rolled his eyes, and shoved at his shoulder. “I haven’t been your captain for three years. I’ll be sure to sleep, _mother_. I’ll even send you a text the moment I’m in bed so that you can reassure yourself I’m fast asleep.”

Hanamaki grinned at him, leaning in to press their cheeks together in a familiar gesture of kinship.

Then, he turned around and left--leaving Oikawa standing at the entrance to his apartment block, staring up at the starless night sky.

It took him an upsettingly long time to summon up the energy to head up towards his home, rather than run straight back to the hospital where Hatsue and Ryuuko were.


	2. Chapter 2

Whenever he could, Oikawa found himself at the hospital, spending time by the incubators that held his children, dressed in hospital blues and having been utterly scrubbed down to minimise the risk of infecting his children with any illnesses.

Hanamaki joined him sometimes, but Oikawa usually went alone.

It was risky for him to spend so much time away from campus when he was in his final year of studies, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He could always retake college. He couldn’t retake the moments of his children growing up.

The doctors had mentioned that it would be safer to keep the children at the hospital until their condition settled and they gained enough weight to no longer be unsafe.

Oikawa had to quell the urge to growl at them, and demand that he be given his children.

The instinct to keep his offspring close and the need to keep them safe would war with one another as he sat by Hatsue and Ryuuko, quietly humming half-remembered lullabies and stroking their little faces.

As time passed, their skin faded from their reddened hue to a more subdued beige, their little bodies picking up weight as they were fed well by the nurses.

He knew their faces better than his own at this point.

Hatsue’s eyes were the exact same shade as his own. Hatsue had a small blemish on her chin, to the left of her mouth, a perfect little spot that Oikawa would kiss whenever she burbled. She had more hair than her younger sister, and a little fold on her right ear that left it mildly lopsided. She had thirty little eyelashes upon each eye, and he could spy little threads peeking out of the skin, as if to bloom even more lashes. She was quiet, less vocal but far more responsive to Oikawa’s touch.

Ryuuko’s eyes were a hazy blue, turning brown. She had larger hands than her sister, dimples upon her cheeks when she smiled, little folds of fat around her neck and arms especially when she moved her arms about in that feeble way that newborn children did. Her little eyebrows were fuzzy little patches above them, almost constantly furrowed as she gazed around her surroundings. Even at this young age, he felt as if she would be the more energetic of the twins, ever active and moving.

They were so beautiful, so _wonderful_ even in their lack of activity. They were still young--Oikawa had time. He had so much time to spend with them.

Eighteen years from this point, at the very minimum. He promised himself this. He would dedicate eighteen years of his life for his girls and more.

* * *

“Those are your children?”

Oikawa glanced up when he heard a deep voice addressing him. It was attached to the form of a large, square-shouldered man, dressed in a pale green gown that indicated that he was a nurse. There was an earthy, flowery tone to his smell despite the contrast in the powerful scent that clung to his clothing.

When he took another sniff, he could taste the heavy humidity and static in the air prior to a thunderstorm at the back of his throat, decorated with the hint of exotic flora. A smell that he often found lingering in this room.

“Yes. These two are mine,” Oikawa stated.

“They’re very quiet when you aren’t here,” the man stated. “They already respond to you very well. It’s surprising to find children who recover so quickly when they fail to imprint on their birth parent.”

Oikawa glanced back at Ryuuko, who was lazily gnawing on Oikawa’s pinky finger with soft gums. Hatsue was fast asleep in the other incubator, her breathing slow and silent.

“I’m Oikawa Tooru,” he said a moment later. “You already knew Hatsue and Ryuuko.”

“Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

The nurse pulled a chair over, sitting down beside Oikawa despite not having asked if he minded.

He stared at Oikawa’s children with a thunderous expression. Oikawa would have taken offense at the stern expression, had the man’s eyebrows not relaxed as he considered the way Ryuuko had drooled all over her face in her delight at biting her father’s fingers.

The man, close to Oikawa’s age, if not a little older, seemed to have a soft spot for babies.

“The other nurses mentioned that you come nearly everyday. You’re very young. Don’t you have other obligations?” Ushijima asked, his questions blunt without the usual indirectness that Oikawa expected from his fellow Japanese.

Oikawa pulled his fingers away from Ryuuko’s mouth, watching as her mouth hung open and globules of spit oozed down her face. “I might be young, but I know that these two should be my only obligations right now.”

“Why do you think that?”

Oikawa glanced over at the man with those stern eyebrows and aquiline eyes.

It was strange to talk to such a candid man, especially one that demanded to know more about Oikawa than he usually would be willing to give. His alpha instincts didn’t act up, which was a clear indicator that he didn’t feel particularly threatened despite the man’s greater stature. The man was probably being genuine in his curiosity, and not intending on any harm to him or his children. He also didn’t intend on talking much with this man again, so he supposed he could afford the honesty.

“I can redo everything else in my life, but I can’t redo them,” he stated simply.

Ushijima let out a grunt, and they lapsed into silence.

Ryuuko had drooled herself into sleep, her eyes closed and mouth still hanging open. Oikawa gently reached out to close her mouth, wiping away the sticky liquid that coated her face with the corner of a sanitised wipe.

Hatsue shifted in her sleep, her little legs sticking out on either side of her body. Oikawa pulled the small blanket in her incubator over her body.

“Are you interning here?” Oikawa then asked, glancing over at Ushijima, whose eyebrows had furrowed at Oikawa’s question. “I thought interns didn’t generally find themselves in the neonatal unit.”

“I’m a certified nurse. Twenty-eight.”

Oikawa’s initial thoughts on his age were wrong then. “My mistake~! You look younger than that,” he said quickly, sending Ushijima a grin.

Ushijima’s eyebrow rose. “Most people say the opposite.”

“It might be the eyebrows,” Oikawa quipped, raising a hand to cover his mouth so that Ushijima couldn’t fully see the wide grin on Oikawa’s face. He’d always enjoyed teasing others, especially those with stoic features.

“Hm.” Ushijima stood up again, closing the chair and stowing it to the side. “Perhaps. I have to make my rounds. I’ll see you again if you come during my shift.”

Oikawa waved him off, watching the man disappear among the rows of incubators that held other people’s children. He then turned back to the sight of Hatsue slowly batting her eyes open, and he lovingly stroked her face.

* * *

Over the course of the next month, Oikawa’s visits coincided with Ushijima’s shift exactly three times.

Each time, Ushijima came over to sit by him, watched him play with his immobile children, and offered him quiet and honest-filled conversation.

It was nice, having someone to sit next to and just talk to about inconsequential things. It was nice, knowing that his children were in the hands of someone who knew him and would therefore take greater care for his daughters just because he felt obligated to do more for someone who was becoming his friend.

Ushijima asked about his former mate only once--though he hadn’t exactly _asked_ so much as mention that she was missing out on a lot.

“How so?” Oikawa had asked, utterly perplexed by the non sequitur.

“She’s missing out on seeing how you look at your children.” Ushijima then mentioned, a rare smile on his face. “I rarely see new parents that look at their children the way that you do, nevertheless an alpha. It’s admirable.”

Oikawa hadn't liked how his ears had suddenly felt like they were on fire--and for the first time, cursed that his hair wasn't any longer to hide them from Ushijima's view. He had tried to hide how he turned a bright red at the praise, and had quickly looked away towards his children.

Hatsue had been blowing bubbles for the first time, and Ryuuko sent Oikawa a gum-filled grin.

* * *

“When will they be allowed to come home?” Hanamaki asked one day as Oikawa scribbled furiously into a notebook about the various duties that first response units would have to fulfill at a crime scene.

He had a midterm the next day, something that he’d realised a little too late. He’d been visiting the hospital too often to recall anything he’d learned from his forensics class, and as a result was cramming everything he’d learned in the past month onto the one sheet of A4 he was allowed to bring into the room with him.

Too caught up in whether or not it was necessary to write about the biochemical methods of analysis, he startled when Hanamaki jabbed him in the side.

“H-hey! Don’t do that, Makki! What if I messed up all of my notes?” Oikawa complained.

“Ne, Oikawa, I asked you--when will Hatsue and Ryuuko be allowed home?” Hanamaki drawled. “I mean, you’re bringing them to the campus, right? I don’t think you have any other place to bring them.”

Oikawa nodded, sweeping a hand through his hair in frustration. “I… when they’re above three and a half pounds. That’s what Ushijima said the other day. He’s one of the nurses assigned to their care,” he added when Hanamaki looked confused. “Normally, it’s safe when they’re around three pounds, but they wanted to be extra careful that the… failed imprint wouldn’t affect their development.”

Single parent families weren’t uncommon, but it usually wasn’t the birth parent who would abandon the child. Various research had been done into the biological connection between children and their birth parent, especially omegas--and while there had been nothing conclusive, there was still correlation between physical health and maternal connection enough that the unit wanted to keep the children in for observation.

“And are you bringing them to your dorm? What’s your roommate going to say when you bring two newborns to your dorm, ‘Kawa?” Hanamaki asked, raising an eyebrow.

Oikawa shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking that I’d move out before the girls come home. My roommate hates kids. Hates anything to do with them. I don’t know,” he then repeated, letting out a strained sigh. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I-- I need to graduate. Get a job. Support them. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to study when I have two kids to care for all day. Besides, I don’t even have a job now--I wouldn’t be able to afford anything outside of campus,” he added with a glance towards Hanamaki.

His friend was nodding occasionally, humming in thought.

“I can’t ask my parents to support me, either,” Oikawa added with a nervous hint to his words. “I don’t want their questions. But there’s no one I can ask to take care of them while I’m at school. _You’re_ at school. There’s no one else I can trust with them.”

“Well, we can look for a daycare or something to put them in for now,” Hanamaki reasoned. He then sent Oikawa a smile. “And we’ll move in together once we’ve scrounged up enough for it. I’ve been meaning to ditch my roommate for a while now, and it’s not like I’d tell you to get rid of my nieces, right Oikawa?”

Oikawa smiled brightly at Hanamaki even as he tried to pretend as if his eyes weren’t watering up.

Hanamaki tactfully didn’t watch as Oikawa wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

“Hey, Makki.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”


	3. Chapter 3

Midterms flew by, and Oikawa soon found himself with a date of release. His children were going to be coming home with him by the end of the week.

Ushijima had stopped him on his way out of the neonatal unit, and offered him that piece of glorious, wonderful news in the form of a blunt and clipped sentence.

“Make sure you’re here on Saturday. You don’t need to bring a pen. We’ll supply them for when you sign their release papers.”

Oikawa had stared in shock at the nurse before nodding dumbly, watching as Ushijima retreated back to his workplace.

Unable to stop his hands from shaking at the realisation, Oikawa had had to find a quiet place to try to settle his breathing and--stop himself from laughing madly, body shaking with the  _ relief _ that his children weren’t going to be taken away from him.  He hadn’t realised that he’d been warring with that terror in the past month.

Every moment he spent with Ushijima had felt like a test, a guillotine above his head just waiting for him to say the wrong word so that they had an excuse to label him unfit to be a parent.

Fumbling for his phone, he’d shot off a text to Hanamaki ( _ theyrec oming home sat _ ) before he’d had to run off back to the campus to his next lecture before he was late.

By the time he’d arrived at his lecture hall, he’d missed the lecturer’s introduction to their new topic, and Hanamaki had spammed him with texts and calls--but neither of these facts could stop Oikawa from grinning to himself the entire day.

Saturday. That was the day he had been awaiting all of his life.

* * *

In preparation for Saturday, he’d gone out and bought a variety of basic equipment he knew that his children would need.

Plastic bottles for milk, milk formulas suited for their age group, blankets and clothing and pacifiers and toys and books and diapers and diaper creams, a variety of liquid vitamin supplements for children, multitudes of books on the subject of parenting. He’d already grilled Ushijima for advice, but he still felt that it wasn’t enough.

He’d already bought two cribs the day that he’d found out he was going to have twins all those months ago, but he’d never had the opportunity to unbox them and actually set them up. He promptly did it once he was in the safety of his room, pushing his furniture around until he could snugly place the cribs by his bed, easily within arm’s reach. His bookshelves found themselves relocated closer to the door, preventing him from being able to fully open it, but he didn’t mind. He’d rather have his children close than too far.

His roommate had sent him looks of disgust for setting up two cribs inside of his room, muttering a, “they’d better not scream their heads off at night or I’ll smother them” that had Oikawa returning that look just as venomously.

Oikawa couldn’t wait to move out into the home he and Hanamaki had been making plans for.

This cramped little room, half-filled with books and the other half filled with clothing, wasn’t in fit shape for two healthy and growing girls. The apartment he shared with his roommate wasn’t anywhere near adequate for  _ one _ person, let alone two.

He promised himself this wouldn’t last any longer than a year. By the end of a year, he’d be in a home with enough space for Hatsue and Ryuuko to roam around, crawling around on their hands and knees.

* * *

That Saturday, Oikawa exited the hospital in a daze, unable to stop himself from smiling down at the children held securely in his arms. The entire time. He was utterly enraptured by the two little girls he’d helped to create, and it showed in how blank his mind was to anything other than the way Hatsue slept and Ryuuko looked around in astonishment that the scenery around her was changing.

He’d forgotten to buy a perambulator, but he had strong arms built from years of exercise--he could handle holding two growing children all the way back from the hospital.

Hanamaki was holding onto the various supplies that the hospital had given them, having been utterly rebuffed when he offered to hold onto one of the girls.

They climbed into the bus that would take them back to their campus, Hanamaki having to pay his fare for him. Oikawa refused to free his hands, since that would mean setting either of his girls down. He’d been denied so much time with them already, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way of holding his children now that he was allowed to.

As the bus started up, Oikawa found that he had to lean against the nearest support pole to stop himself from falling over. Hanamaki rolled his eyes, and slung an arm around his shoulders, securing him into place.

“They’re beautiful,” Oikawa repeated for the fifth time, a stupid grin on his face as he leaned into Hanamaki, displaying Ryuuko proudly to his friend. “Look at her. She’s already looking around, she’s so curious.”

“Yeah, just like you. She’d better not be as stubborn as you as well, or she’s going to get into a lot of shit.” Hanamaki teased, grinning in amusement at how sappy Oikawa had become in the presence of his children.

An elderly woman standing next to them glanced over. “Are they your children? They’re very healthy,” she said in a crackling voice, eyes crinkling with happiness. “The one that’s awake--she has their mother’s eyes.”

Oikawa blinked at the woman, before exchanging glances with Makki.

Makki snorted. “Ah--we aren’t together. Besides, Oikawa’s the father of these two. Alpha and everything else entailed.”

“Oh, my mistake!” The woman exclaimed. “My nose doesn’t quite work like it used to. You’re an alpha then? Hm, they’re very healthy children, that much I can see. How old are they?”

“Oh--they’re barely five weeks old,” Oikawa found himself saying, pridefully recounting information about his children to a woman he didn’t know at all.

Oikawa found himself drawn into conversation with the elderly woman, who revealed that she was an omega herself with three children, all of whom were fully grown with their own families. She coached him on the best ways to take care of newly born children, cautioning him on the various aspects of babies. He’d just been about to hear the stories she had about teaching her children their first words when Hanamaki had to nudge him.

“We’re getting off here. Sorry for the interruption, but we really have to go,” Hanamaki apologised even as he pulled Oikawa along with him.

Oikawa called out a farewell to the elderly woman even as he was towed off the bus. He hadn't even learned her name, but he'd felt a strange kinship with her.  Was this something that all parents felt, when they met someone who could empathise with them?

“I never thought I’d ever see the day you’d be happy about learning the best ways to wipe a kid’s ass from a woman who could’ve been old enough to wipe your own parents’ ass for them,” Hanamaki stated wryly.

“It’s important to learn these things!” Oikawa exclaimed, huffing softly as he followed Hanamaki towards his dorm room. "If I don't learn it well, how will I be able to  _do_ it well?"

A few students who had decided to brave the early morning caught sight of Oikawa carrying two newborn babies, but none seemed curious enough to approach him.

Oikawa preferred it that way. He wanted his children at his dorm as soon as possible where he could construct a nest. It hadn’t felt right to make one before they were even home. He wanted to make sure it was perfect, a place where he could tend to their every need without their discomfort.

“Yeah, but… the image that I remember of you back in high school, being the first to gag and complain whenever Watari would bring up his baby sister’s ability for projectile excretion,  _ really _ doesn’t fit in with the image of you right now,” Hanamaki reasoned. He pulled Oikawa’s keys out from his pockets, unlocking the dormitory building and allowing Oikawa to pass through.

They then climbed the stairs to Oikawa’s flat on the second floor.

Hanamaki unlocked the door, pushing it open again for Oikawa. They walked in without much fear for harassment via Oikawa’s baby-hating roommate. Luckily enough, his roommate had decided to stay the night over at a different place, allowing Oikawa to take free reign over the space until his roommate returned.

Oikawa kicked at his room’s door until Hanamaki opened it for him, and he gently set his children down into their respective cribs.

“You can set your things down by the closet for now. I want to get my room reorganised, and you’re going to help me do it.”

Hanamaki sighed. “Great.”

* * *

 

Oikawa's room ended up half-filled with baby products. The other half was filled with condensed piles of his books, clothing and personal effects.

Hanamaki had despaired that Oikawa was becoming such a  _mother_ , but Oikawa had taken that as the compliment that it was.

Nevertheless, he had Hanamaki change Ryuuko's diaper when it became apparent that the growing stench of waste in Oikawa's room had originated from her.

* * *

Ushijima had given his personal phone number to Oikawa on the off-chance that he wanted someone medically connected to talk to.

Oikawa hadn’t expected that he’d be calling him so soon after Hatsue and Ryuuko had come home.

“Ushiwaka--sorry for calling so suddenly. It’s me, Oikawa. Hatsue’s sniffling, and her nose is running and she’s coughing so much. I don’t know what to do--I’ve been reading the books, but nothing’s ever mentioned anything about what to do when they’re this young and sick--”

“Calm down. You said she has a running nose and is coughing?”

“Yeah. Yes. That’s what I said. I don’t know if it’s actually a cough, but her throat is really hoarse, and she’s making pained sounds every few minutes,” Oikawa explained, biting his lip and running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

He glanced over at Hatsue, who’d let out a weak cry, her eyes filled with tears and her nose already clogged with mucus even though he’d wiped her nose clean just moments ago. Ryuuko was at the other side of the room, still asleep. He’d separated the twins when Hatsue had become sick, as much as it pained him to have Ryuuko not in his immediate vicinity, but he hadn’t wanted Ryuuko becoming sick as well.

“The hospital is very clean. There are less microbes around in the hospital compared to outside. Even if you disinfect your home very well, they can still come in through the front door. It is likely that they’re sick because of that. It’s normal for children to get sick when they are that young.” Ushijima’s no-nonsense explanation had Oikawa pacing across his room in agitation. “It’s good that they get sick. It means that their immune system is developing.”

“But-- that doesn’t mean that it’s not serious!” Oikawa snapped.

“Of course.”

Oikawa stopped, blinking at the wall he was glaring at.

“If they’re sick, there’s always the chance that it may be something very dangerous. Do you want me to visit after I’m done with my shift? I can take a quick look at the girls, just enough to tell you if it’s urgent enough to warrant a visit to a paediatrician.”

“Yes. Yes please,” Oikawa immediately stated.

Just years ago, he would’ve never bent his pride enough to ask someone else for their help--but for his children, it seemed, he’d drag himself through mud and humiliation if it meant that they’d be okay.

* * *

Ushijima didn’t seem very impressed by the dormitory block that Oikawa lived in, but Oikawa couldn’t bring himself to care.

Showing the nurse the way up to his flat and into his room, he ignored the way his roommate stared as Ushijima entered his room.

(It was probably because he’d almost attacked his roommate for entering his room without warning that one time, his protective instincts going  _ haywire _ when someone invaded his den where his vulnerable children were sleeping.)

“They’re here. I’m keeping them apart because I don’t want Ryuuko to also catch what Hatsue has. I’ve been washing my hands after touching Hatsue so that I don’t transmit anything to Ryuuko, even changing my shirt if she’s coughed on me or left any of her snot on me,” Oikawa rambled, hovering over Ushijima’s shoulder as Ushijima went over to Hatsue.

He watched as the nurse carefully pick up Hatsue, cradling her firmly against his chest as he examined her face.

Oikawa realised with a start that this was the first time he’d ever seen Ushijima touching either of his children. He also realised that the familiarity in his movements meant that Ushijima had probably picked up dozens and dozens of children before in the past--something that had reassurement curling up in the pit of his stomach.

Ushijima didn’t have any awkwardness or qualms about how tight his grip needed to be on Hatsue, confident that he wouldn’t hurt her even as he pushed her eyelids up enough that he could see the colour of her sclera and the dilation of her pupils and pulled the neckline of her shirt low enough that he could feel the temperature of her back.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s anything out of the ordinary. Just your usual case of the common cold: headache, running nose and sore throat. If she gets a fever, it might be necessary to bring her to the hospital, but if she never develops one, it’s fine to just keep her at home. Don’t let her bathwater get cool, and make sure to keep feeding her milk regularly. She’ll need fluids to get better quickly. How much does she eat every day?”

“Four feedings a day, about a cup of formula each time,” Oikawa immediately recounted. “They say that you’re supposed to feed them about a litre of formula, right? That’s what I’ve been doing,” he added defensively, unhappy with the perceived attack on his parenting.

“Does she finish it all?” Ushijima asked, apparently not noticing Oikawa’s aggressiveness.

“Uh--most times, yes. Why?” Oikawa demanded. “Am I feeding her too much? Too little?”

“There’s no need to give her any additional supplements, since she generally gets her daily requirement of nutrients. Four feedings is enough. You’re doing well.”

Oikawa blinked again, all the aggressive energy immediately sweeping out of him when Ushijima didn’t seem interested in attacking Oikawa’s ability to parent. It was always disconcerting to deal with someone who just-- _ didn’t care _ how his words came across to others. He didn’t even say that in an attempt to antagonise, which was the most annoying part of talking to Ushijima.

Oikawa sat down heavily on the bed, watching as Ushijima carefully rocked Hatsue in his arms.

He then set her down, moving over to the bottle of rubbing alcohol that Oikawa had left on the bedside stand and disinfecting his hands.

“May I check Ryuuko as well?” Ushijima asked.

“Yes. Go right on ahead, Ushiwaka,” Oikawa agreed belatedly.

Ushijima nodded briskly, heading over to Ryuuko’s crib and picking her up. She woke up with a startled  _ ah! _ but didn’t seem agitated enough to cry. She did, however, bat her hands against Ushijima’s hands as if trying to hit him.

Oikawa laughed softly when Ushijima smoothed his fingers over hers, preventing her from continuing to hit him. Her eyes widened when she realised she was unable to move her hand, and she let out a series of quiet, offended sounds with her monosyllabic vocabulary.

_ Ah! Ah ah ah ah... Ahahhh. _

It was cute.

Ushijima’s lips had quirked into a faint smile at her attempt at lecturing him without words as he moved to check Ryuuko’s features. He finally set her down when she passed his inspection, taking a moment to shoosh her when she immediately picked up her little babblings of  _ ah! _ He stepped back when she finally fell silent, having tired herself out calling out with that one sound.

“She’s fine. A little mucous has built up on her face, but that’s normal.”

Ushijima came over to sit down next to Oikawa on his bed, a mountain of blankets and pillows piled up behind them as a backrest.

“You’re good with kids,” Oikawa remarked quietly, leaning back.

Ushijima glanced up. “Your children are particularly mild-mannered,” he countered.

Maybe they were. But Oikawa could see that Ushijima’s touch was infinitely gentle when it came to dealing with children, and the furrow in his brow softened whenever he played with Oikawa’s daughters.

Oikawa reached out to touch Ushijima’s hand.

Ushijima had stilled, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Thanks for coming over, Ushiwaka.”

Ushijima hesitated. “Any time.” And then he nodded one, a firm, decisive tilt to his head.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl I'm heavily leaning towards Ushi + Oi, even if I have plans on how I'm going to introduce other characters to this story.  
> as promised, this is a VERY slow build story.  
> it's going to explore the years that Oikawa spends with his daughters, and how that dynamic shapes all of his other relationships.

Hatsue eventually got better, and she and Ryuuko both grew in size and energy.

There were various milestones that they reached over the past few months.

 _Mah._ Hatsue had made her first sound when Oikawa tucked a hot water bottle into one of her plush toys one night, eyes wide with wonder at the warmth of her toy. He’d been dazed by the late hour, unsure if he heard her right until she began to babble at him.

Ryuuko had progressed into being able to keep her index finger up while curling the rest of her fingers, pointing directly at Oikawa seemingly by accident when he came over to chat to her about his day. She’d pointed at him, and looked at her fingers in fascination as if unsure of how to comprehend how fingers worked.

They were both able to stand up on their little hands while they were on their stomachs, holding their heads up long enough to peer curiously at the walls before falling back onto their chests and crying because they were surprised by how gravity worked.

Oikawa had found himself jerking awake one night when he smelt fear emitting from one of the cribs next to him--Ryuuko had experienced her first nightmare, and it had her crying in her sleep, wanting comfort but not knowing from _what_.

Hanamaki had finally been able to change diapers without wasting perfectly clean ones because he broke the adhesive strips off. He’d been so proud to demonstrate his ability to Oikawa that he’d had Hatsue changed despite not needing it. Ushijima had actually laughed at that one when Oikawa told him about it.

There was a certain sense of pride that came with knowing that these were all achievements related to his children. _His_ children. No one else’s.

He kept each milestone, good and bad alike, preciously close to his heart, recording what he could with his camera, and writing down the others that he couldn’t.

* * *

“Ushiwaka--can you take care of Hatsue and Ryuuko for me?” Oikawa asked one day. “During the graduation ceremony, I mean.”

“Graduation? Ah. I forgot you were still in school.” Ushijima rubbed his fingers against his forehead. “You will be graduating this year.”

“Yes. I’ve decided to go straight into work once I do,” Oikawa elaborated, unsure of why he felt the need to explain himself to his friend. “I already have a few places I want to apply for. A few professors of mine have offered to take me in to work as their teaching aide if I ever decided to take a Master’s.”

Ushijima blinked at him. “That’s good. You have options.”

Oikawa nodded. “It is.”

“So about your previous question. You want me to take care of your children. Why me?” Ushijima sounded curious.

“My family doesn’t know about them. I… kind of want to keep it that way,” he admitted, sweeping his fingers through his hair. “I mean, I want you to be there too. At the ceremony. But, you know, it’s…  I would’ve asked Makki to do it, but he’s graduating with me. I can’t really ask anyone else to, you know,” Oikawa made an abortive move of his hands, trying to explain physically what he couldn’t verbally.

“So you want me to be at your graduation ceremony with your children, but you don’t want me to approach you until your family are gone. Is that it?” Ushijima asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Is that selfish of me?” Oikawa then asked.

“Yes, it is very selfish.” Ushijima confirmed, nodding once. “But I’ll do it. When is your graduation?”

Oikawa sent Ushijima a blinding smile. “Thank you, Ushiwaka! It’s on the fifteenth of...”

* * *

Oikawa’s children were an open secret by the time graduation rolled around, but no one seemed to be able to figure out _who_ the other birth parent was.

He hadn’t been trying to keep them hidden away, and it would’ve been hard for him to do so when he occasionally took his children out to visit parks with Makki in the time he could spare between classes, final year projects and exams. Makki had been delighted to introduce them to some of the dogs (and their owners) that he knew visited the park.

There were rumours that he’d had children from a one-night stand, or that the tall man with black hair that he was occasionally seen with on campus was his omega.

It had made Oikawa laugh to consider Ushijima as his omega--the man was too stoic, too composed to seem like anything but a beta. Maybe an alpha, if he ever showed more personality than a doorknob.

But concerning his children’s mother:

He’d spotted Nanako occasionally throughout the semester. Though they shared the same courses, she’d inevitably drifted away from her usual spot sitting by his side, to sitting by the side of a bunch of other girls. She never came up to talk to him, for all that their eyes had met and lingered.

She’d always looked apologetic when he glanced at her.

He’d always felt a keen sense of pain in the pit of his stomach at the sight of her. He still loved her, _painfully_ so, enough so that he’d asked her to be his mate all those years ago--but that was all in his head. In his heart, at the core of his instinct, he reviled her for abandoning the children that’d conceived.

Oikawa couldn’t bring himself to look at her longer than a few seconds.

He turned his head when he saw her walk up onto the stage to accept her diploma.

Nanako was wearing frilled socks under her graduation robe; she’d been wearing them on their last date together. He turned his head away, biting his lip.

His eyes fell upon his parents, looking ecstatic that his (former) mate had graduated with full honours. His sister Momoka had a fond smile on her face, one that she kept when she noticed Oikawa looking over at her from the sidelines. She gave him a little wave, as did Takeru, who despite being 12 and angsting each step of the way, still adored Oikawa in a way that made him feel warm at heart.

The line in front of him moved along, and he unconsciously took a step forward in time with the others.

He could see his parents, and Hanamaki’s family were sitting right next to them. However, he couldn’t quite see where Ushijima had managed to sit down. He knew that his children were out there somewhere, probably slung in Ushijima’s arms and fast asleep in the quiet of the graduation ceremony, but _knowing_ and _seeing_ were two completely different things.

He didn’t like being separated from his children.

He tapped his fingers nervously against his thigh, eyes sweeping over the crowd in an attempt to find Ushijima’s face, the powerful set of his shoulders making him seem larger than life.

The end of the line inched closer and he cast his eyes desperately through the crowd, fingers digging into his thigh as a sudden anxiety swept through him.

It was right as he heard his name being called that he could see Ushijima--near the back, far enough that his face was almost indistinguishable. However, he could see two little forms in Ushijima’s arms. Twin rounded oblongs of pale yellow; they’d been swaddled in their little blankets and it had Oikawa’s heart set alight with relief.

It was enough to make him plaster a wide smile on his face, beaming widely as he climbed up the stairs and walked towards the dean of his college, accepting his diploma with all of the grace that he could.

Then he walked off the stage and into the mass of graduates who thrummed with nervous energy.

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur.

The dean gave one final quick speech, congratulating the graduates, then ended the ceremony.

The students and parents streamed out of the hall that the event had taken place, and Oikawa found himself being pulled into his parents’ arms. He laughed, smiling widely as he greeted them and accepted their congratulations, wiped away his mother’s tears tenderly. He returned the hug his sister gave him, nuzzling the side of her face before he turned to rub the top of Takeru’s head, joking about how it would soon enough be Takeru standing on that stage.

Takeru had shot him a dirty look for messing up his hairstyle--something that was still fairly new to him, considering he’d only recently started growing his hair out, and Oikawa winked at him cheerfully.

His parents had him take multiple photos, by himself, with his sister, with his nephew, with Hanamaki, with the rest of his faculty--and Oikawa endured it all with a smile that grew painful as he realised he wanted his children in his arms in the photos with him.

Eventually, his parents seemed to tire of the photos and seemed to sense his impatience, and gave him loving hugs.

“You’ll want to get dinner with your friends, I’m sure,” his mother said with a watery smile. “But make sure you come by the hotel tomorrow for lunch. I want us to be able to spend at least one day together now that you’ve graduated and you’re finally a man.”

“Alright. I’ll call you when I’m on my way to the hotel. I’ll see you tomorrow, okaa-chan.” Oikawa gave her a kiss on the cheek, giving his father a nod, then turned to face his sister.

Momoka had a knowing look on her face.

“Something’s changed about you, Tooru,” she murmured once their parents were far enough out of earshot. “I won’t say a thing to our parents, but… Nanako isn’t around. You don’t smell like her anymore.”

Oikawa shook his head. “She left me four months ago,” he admitted.

He’d had his children for four months already. _God_. Time went by so fast.

“You seem calmer now. I thought Nanako would’ve been good for you but… I think this new you is better. You’re calmer, and you look happier,” his sister murmured. “I won’t ask you to tell me what the reason is, but--”

“Have dinner with me and Makki tonight,” Oikawa blurted out before he could stop himself. “Takeru too, if… if he can keep a secret,” he then added, sending his nephew a sly grin.

“Hey! I can keep a secret!” Takeru snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. “What is it anyway, Tooru-nii?”

“You’ll see!” Oikawa replied, a content smile on his face. “Just… don’t tell anyone. Alright?”

* * *

Momoka gave him a sharp look when Oikawa nervously opened the door to Hanamaki’s flat, having caught sight of a baby rattle laying rather conspicuously on the floor in front of them.

“Ne, Tooru-nii, what’s with the baby toys? Is that your secret?” Takeru asked in that rather bratty voice that pre-teens seemed to love to employ. “You play with baby toys now?”

Oikawa shook his head, gesturing for them to follow him in. Bending to scoop the rattle off the floor, he tucked it into his pocket. “It’s not… quite that, Takeru. The secret’s right here.”

Showing them into the living room of the flat, Oikawa heaved out a sigh when he caught sight of Ushijima sitting on the couch by Hanamaki. They each had a child in their arms, swaddled and content.

Oikawa walked forward, scooping Ryuuko out of Ushijima’s arms and into his own. Ushijima looked fairly concerned, glancing over his shoulder at the two unfamiliar people in the flat. He’d forgotten that Ushijima had never met his sister or nephew, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to introduce them yet.

“Uh. This is Ryuuko, Takeru. Your cousin,” Oikawa said brightly. “And in Makki’s arms, that’s Hatsue. She’s the elder twin,” he added, watching with trepidation as Takeru and Momoka stared mutely at the children.

Hanamaki raised a hand. “If you decide that you’re going to yell, make sure to yell at just Oikawa. He’s the one who decided not to tell anyone.”

“ _Two_.”

Momoka’s words were choked out, and her eyes had widened to astronomical proportions.

“You have-- _two_ children here. Did you _steal_ them?” She asked, voice brittle in her extreme shock.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a moment of silence, before Ushijima spoke up.

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

Oikawa’s eyes were startled, and he glanced over at the nurse. Ushijima had stood up, looking at Momoka with a frown on his face.

“He loves his children, and has worked very hard for them. Do not diminish what he’s done for them so far by talking of his children like that,” Ushijima rebuked. The thunderstorm scent of his had gotten stronger, betraying the unrest that Ushijima was apparently feeling. “He did not steal them. They are  _ his  _ children.”

Oikawa found himself stunned, staring mutely at Ushijima who looked utterly defensive as he stepped up to Oikawa’s side.

“Nanako’d been the one to just dump them on Oikawa,” Hanamaki added from his position on the couch, arms tight around Ryuuko. “He didn’t so much kidnap them as he had them shoved onto him. Not that he didn’t willingly take them in, but my point stands.”

Momoka seemed surprised as well by the sudden defense, but she shook her head. “That wasn’t what I meant. Tooru--I didn’t expect this at all. You… with two children.  _ Oikawa Tooru _ with two little girls.”

Takeru nodded. “Yeah! What do you mean that they’re my cousins? You mean--these are your kids?” Takeru crowded up to Oikawa’s side, clearly ignoring the way Ushijima’s eyebrows furrowed in warning as Takeru peered at Hatsue. “They look squished. Did you wrap her up a little too tight in that blanket?”

Oikawa bent down enough that Takeru didn’t have to bounce up to look at Hatsue’s sleeping face, even as he pulled the blanket looser around Hatsue--worried despite himself that he’d hurt her with said.

“Huh.” Takeru glanced up at Oikawa, a little grin on his face. It was mischievous--it looked exactly like Oikawa’s own grin. “Ne, Tooru-nii, why couldn’t you have gotten them years ago? It would’ve been nice to have little sisters while growing up.”

Momoka let out a laugh, startled but warm. “Takeru! You know that wouldn’t have happened.”

Oikawa laughed as well, waving off Takeru’s cheekiness by teasing Takeru about narrowly dodging the sister-con bullet.

Even as Takeru complained, trying to escape the way Oikawa was ruffling his messy hair, Hanamaki had walked over to Ushijima, pushing Ryuuko into the man’s arms. Almost instantly, Ushijima’s arms had risen, cradling the child securely, and his eyebrows had relaxed again.

Oikawa was glad for that, at least: Ushijima didn’t seem to be the type to explode with anger, but then again, this had been the first time he’d ever seen the other visibly irritated.

Takeru lectured Oikawa on exactly  _ why _ he shouldn’t mess with Takeru’s hair.

Even as he nodded and grinned at his nephew, he could hear Hanamaki and his sister chatting quietly over by the kitchen. He wondered if Hanamaki was explaining the few months past to her.

Takeru seemed to eventually get bored of lecturing his uncle, and moved towards the television.

Ushijima was warm by his side, and Oikawa found himself leaning against his friend as he watched Takeru flick to his favourite channel.

It was nice. It felt reassuring that he had the solid weight of Ushijima to rest against. Ushijima was his newest pillar in this new chapter of his life that included himself and his children and everyone that he cared for.

* * *

Dinner had been interesting.

Hanamaki’s roommate had joined them briefly to steal a few pieces of their food before rushing out to drink with the rest of their cohort.

Momoka had stared at Hanamaki’s kitchen with warring disgust and amazement that they had been able to manoeuver at all in the cramped, grease-covered place to create some basic dishes.

Ushijima had picked at the takeout that Hanamaki had taken the initiative to order to make up for the lack of variety in freshly cooked dishes, unsatisfied by the apparent “lack of nutritional content”.

Takeru had grinned throughout dinner, utterly mirthful over how Oikawa had seemed flustered as he shifted between feeding himself and both of his children.

Oikawa had relaxed for the first time since months, smiling and grinning at how his sister and nephew, at the very least, had accepted his children into their lives without question. That they’d accepted  _ him _ as a father without question.

* * *

The following day had Oikawa accompanying his parents as they walked through Tokyo, trying to draw him into conversation about what he was going to do with his future now that he got his degree.

He’d given them vague answers on pursuing a job within the criminal justice system. There were always jobs that were vacant, he’d placated, and needed to be filled by investigators who had backgrounds in both psychology and biochemistry.

It had been hard to censor himself, to bear in mind that for all that  _ he _ was proud of his children, his parents would not be. He’d had to remove all mention of his little girls, whom were growing so fast that he felt as if he didn’t have enough time to keep up with their accomplishments.

It had been suffocating.

He wanted to tell his mother about how wonderful it was to wake up every morning to the soft sounds of his daughters’ breathing, burbling softly. How heartbreaking it was to see them peer up at him with eyes identical to his own, and see their little lips curl into instinctive smiles. How he could never get enough to pressing his face to theirs and smell how their scent slowly developed, smell how they matured and slowly grew up from helpless babies to babies that were beginning to vocalise their emotions and move around on hands and feet that were gaining strength.

Momoka had held Oikawa’s hand in solidarity once they had arrived at the restaurant his parents had booked, and Takeru had given Oikawa a knowing look and a cheeky grin.

Even with his sister’s support, it still hurt to match his mother’s trusting smile and to meet his father’s proud stare.

(He wondered if, one day in the future, his own children would do the same thing to him.)

* * *

Hours.

Hours and hours and hours had passed and he’d never been this far apart from his children before for so long since the day he’d left the hospital with them bundled up in his arms.

Seven hours and twenty-two minutes and the seconds were only growing with each moment he stayed outside without his children.

Hanamaki wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

But he was only one person.

He had two children, and Hanamaki was only one person trying to take care of two vulnerable, small lives that could be snuffed out so  _ quickly _ and he had to return right now to affirm their safety. That they were still alive and still his and still alive.

What if they’d been hurt? Hanamaki couldn’t possibly call or text him if they’d been hurt; he’d be too busy trying to keep them safe and healthy and alive and calling anyone  _ but _ Oikawa to tell him that they’d been hurt.

What if they’d been hurt. They were hurt. Oikawa couldn’t handle this--what if they were  _ hurt _ ?

Oikawa departed from his parents’ company shortly after dinner, returning to Hanamaki’s flat as fast as he physically could.

Eyes crazed, and limbs trembling from anxiety, Oikawa could barely vocalise his need for Hanamaki to pass his children back to him when the front door had opened for him. It’d taken everything within him to not immediately rip his child out of his friend’s arms.

Ryuuko had been placed into his arms the moment reddened eyes met startled brown, and Hanamaki could barely stammer out that Hatsue was in his bedroom before Oikawa tore into the flat.

Affirming himself with the sights and sounds and sensations of his children in his arms, he relaxed only when Hanamaki had allowed him to take over his bed, pulling his blankets and pillows to half-shreds in a frenzied attempt at creating a safe nest.

With the downy blanket pulled over their heads, and the softest, most densely-packed of pillows supporting the weight of his children, Oikawa curled himself possessively around them. His heartbeat finally slowed, and he could finally breath without the sound of his heartbeat pulsing in his ears, without the sound of his heartbeat  _ screaming _ at him to return to his pups. He stared blankly into the dark masses of hair on the top of their heads, taking in their sweet, familiar scents.

They smelled healthy. They didn’t smell of pain. They didn’t smell of blood. He’d examined every inch of them, running his nose along their skin to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

He kept his arms firmly around them, keeping them within his reach.

It took him hours to pull himself out of his anxious state.

He came out of the mound of blankets only when his children began to mewl for food, a sheepish expression on his face when he caught sight of how unamused Hanamaki was at having been banished to the couch until near-midnight.

“I had to call Ushijima to ask him about what the hell happened to you,” Hanamaki said once Oikawa had heated up water for his children’s morning bottle. “It took a lot of explanation and searching, but he said that it’s behaviour that’s typical in  _ omegas _ , not alphas.”

“Was it separation anxiety?” Oikawa asked belatedly.

“Of a sort,” Hanamaki agreed. “Apparently, it’s some kind of instinct that omegas have after their children’s been in danger or they’ve been separated from them for a long enough time. It’s apparently super rare for alphas to engage in that kind of behaviour.”

Oikawa reached out to gently cup Hatsue’s head, brushing flakes of dried skin off of those fine black strands. “I’ve never been apart from them for so long,” Oikawa tried to justify.

“Mmhm.”

Hanamaki sounded angry.

“What is it, Makki?”

Hanamaki crossed his arms over his chest. “I get that it’s instinct--but does this mean you don’t trust me to take care of your kids for you Oikawa?”

Oikawa’s eyes widened, nearly dropping the bottle in his hand out of shock.

“If you’re going to be like this after dropping your kids off with me for a few hours, I-- well, I won’t tell you to stop bringing them over. I love them too much for that. But it hurts, Oikawa, that you don’t think I’m good enough to keep them safe,” Hanamaki stated rather bluntly.

“It’s not that!” Oikawa rebuked immediately. His hands were shaking. He had to set the formula powder down, not wanting to spill it all over the counter. “It’s  _ never _ that. I trust you Makki. I just... I was so  _ scared _ for them. I’ve never been away from them for this long. I--I needed to make sure they were safe. And they  _ were _ safe. T-thank you for that. They were safe when I came back, Makki.”

The honesty burned his throat. There was a fire in his throat and it was spreading up his nasal cavity and into his eyes. He had to turn away, rubbing furiously at his eyes with his palms.

Hanamaki didn’t respond immediately, but he eventually sighed, uncrossing his arms. He walked over to Oikawa’s side and took the powder from where it stood on the counter.

“I’ll make their food. Just go take a rest, Oikawa. You look terrible.” Hanamaki’s voice had softened again, sounding almost apologetic. “Let’s talk in the morning, alright?”

Oikawa shook his head, and he had to force himself to take the few steps away from his children to the living room couch, keeping his back to them as he lay down and tried to rest.

For all that he closed his eyes and consciously slowed his breathing, he couldn’t sleep until Hanamaki had tucked his children into his arms and turned the light off. With the weight of Hatsue over his heart and Ryuuko's head tucked against his shoulder, he could finally feel the tension of his shoulders melt away.

It was hard to stop his instincts from flaring up, but Oikawa prided himself on his control. He'd conquered so many of his personal demons over the past few months--and this would be just another demon that he won against.

He was more than his instincts.


	6. Chapter 6

Attaining a low-ranking job at a forensics lab had been difficult for Oikawa.

It wasn’t so much the _attaining_ portion of it that had been hardest on him. He’d always been good at interviews, and presenting himself in the best way.

It had been realising that he had to adjust to a schedule that had him away from his children for at least eight and a half hours a day.

Eight hours at the lab. Half an hour to travel to and from the lab back to the small apartment that Hanamaki and he had moved into just a few weeks ago. Eight and a half solid hours of not being within immediate reach of his children and being unable to affirm whether they were safe and happy.

Back in university, he’d been lucky enough that Hanamaki and he had been able to wrangle their schedules such that at least one of them were free to watch over his children.

That had been the beauty of university courses, he supposed: courses typically didn’t last an entire day, he and Hanamaki attempted to keep fairly undemanding schedules, and they’d managed to have intervals of time in which they could rush back to their respective dormitories to take over each other’s shifts to watch over the kids.

Now that they both had secured jobs that would leave them away from the children for _hours_ on end without the ability to switch over--Oikawa had had to find a daycare that he could leave them in.

There had been two in the immediate vicinity of their apartment, both of which had been recommended to him by a fellow tenant at the apartment block that they lived in.

After visiting both and finding them both wanting, Oikawa eventually had brought his children to the daycare that had the smell of peonies and summer rain. The other had smelt sour, much like old milk and freshly squeezed grapefruit.

It had him anxious, had him scared and worried whenever he left them at the daycare.

He didn’t know all of the caretakers there by name or by smell, and his children were always covered in a myriad of smells that he couldn’t quite identify: unfamiliar food, dozens and dozens of scents he didn’t know that could’ve been from other adults or children or toys or clothing. But it was better than leaving them at home all alone for eight hours, without any care at all.

* * *

His coworkers were either a great deal older than him, or an even greater deal older than him. No one was under the age of twenty-five. Oikawa was the sole member under that age.

The chief analyst, an apathetic looking man who went by the name Akaashi Keiji, had been the one to conduct Oikawa’s job interview. He’d been welcoming enough to introduce Oikawa to all of the coworkers working in the lab.

He couldn’t quite recall all of their names, but he knew it would be a matter of time that he’d remember them. There were only fifteen of them within the lab, after all--each with a specialised skillset. Oikawa was still unsure of how exactly he was supposed to fit into the small workforce considering his rather unorthodox double major in biochemistry and psychology, but he supposed that Akaashi had had plans for him.

The few that he could remember were memorable people.

Tendou Satori, who looked like a criminal and probably had the mind of one, was a psychiatric pattern analyst. Or something. Oikawa couldn’t quite remember the exact title of Tendou’s job, but he was one analyst employed by the forensics unit to analyse… something. It was to do with serial crimes. Oikawa had been fascinated by the shock of red hair on his head, too caught up in wondering how he got away with such a daring colour before he realised that he’d tuned out Akaashi’s entire introduction.

Iwaizumi Hajime, who was the main liaison between the lab and the police force. He wasn’t so much an analyst as he was an investigator, according to Akaashi, and when he wasn’t shuttling results from the lab to the police, he was in charge of supervising analysis of crime scenes and the collection of samples from said crime scenes. Iwaizumi had been curt in his greeting, nodding briefly at Oikawa before rushing off to bark criticism at one of the junior analysts, who was apparently handling some scent marker samples wrong.

Kuroo Tetsurou, who he found out was the same age as Ushijima, was supposed to be his direct supervisor. Kuroo was in charge of biochemical testing of the samples that came in from the crime scene investigations unit. Oikawa was under his tutelage until he’d learned enough to operate on his own.

Kuroo had had a wide smile, charming and bright, when he met Oikawa. He’d smelt like hand sanitiser, sports deodorant and clean cotton sheets. He’d rested a hand on Oikawa’s shoulder, made a remark that he was glad to have Oikawa on the team, and had promptly decided to completely reeducate Oikawa in all of his biochemical knowledge.

Iwaizumi had eventually been pulled into the conversation, and Oikawa found himself between the bickering men, laughing and poking fun at how Iwaizumi’s eyebrows had furrowed to the point that they seemed to meet upon the bridge of his nose.

His first day at his job passed by in a blur, and Oikawa was surprised to find that he left the lab with a grin on his face.

* * *

“How was your first day at work?” Ushijima asked that night when he joined Oikawa and Hanamaki for dinner.

It was no longer strange to have the much-older man joining them at their home without prior arrangement. If anything, it was strange to not have him over for dinner, and Oikawa found himself instinctively making dinner for three every night.

The instinct probably started when Oikawa had accepted him into his pack a few days ago. Ushijima had been visibly stunned when Oikawa had offered, eventually admitting that he’d never thought he’d ever receive such an offer. Oikawa had promptly rubbed his neck against and all over Ushijima’s own neck and shoulders, marking him all over in a show of his possessive need to claim the things that he decided was his to claim.

Now though, Oikawa was much less energetic about it, and contented himself with pressing their cheeks together rather than smearing himself all over Ushijima's body.

“It’s not the worst place I could work at. They’ve let me decide what shift I wanted and everything, but I wasn’t expecting that I’d be working full-time in _room service_ for the foreseeable future though,” Hanamaki complained enthusiastically, waving his chopsticks around to emphasise his exaggerated ire. “I didn’t take a degree in _hotel management_ to end up making beds and removing soggy sheets from crusted mattresses!”

Oikawa grinned. “Hey--at least you get to apply what you’ve learnt in college. My supervisor’s been telling me that everything I learned is wrong, and that I’m the biggest imbecile to have ever graced his lab counter.”

Ushijima let out a discontent sound. “You’re not though.”

“That was a joke,” Oikawa said with a little shrug. He set down Ryuuko’s bottle onto the table when she was done feeding, and picked up his own chopsticks to sneak a few bites out of his mackerel. “He seemed really glad to have someone to boss around though, and to rant at about… uh, something to do with phytochromes contaminating his samples probably meaning that someone used a plant as a weapon. I’m not allowed to work with the samples until he’s trained me through the SOPs of the lab and ascertained my labwork apparently.”

Hanamaki had pretended to zone out the moment he mentioned phytochromes, while Ushijima merely nodded, as if he knew exactly what Oikawa was talking about. Ryuuko had decided to fall asleep now that she was full, and was drooling away merrily onto Oikawa’s shoulder with milky spit.

“I’m glad you two are content,” Ushijima said diplomatically. “I’ll attend to Hatsue now. Excuse me.” He stood up and took his tray to the kitchen, where there was the quiet clatter of porcelain against the metal sink base. Water ran briefly, before Ushijima appeared again to head towards Oikawa’s room.

Oikawa smiled fondly at Ushijima’s back and then at Hanamaki, who grinned back with a wink.

“I’m glad you met him. He’s a good man,” Hanamaki said quietly. “He definitely calms things down in our pack.”

Those words brought a thrill through Oikawa. _Pack_.

They were more than just Oikawa-and-Hanamaki now. They were a pack of Oikawa and Hanamaki, and Hatsue and Ryuuko and Ushijima. A shore of safety and comfort that Oikawa wouldn’t give up for anything.

“Yes. He does,” Oikawa murmured softly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to go with three pairings.
> 
> I'm undecided if it will be polyamory, or if it will just stay ambiguous, but from what I've written so far Oikawa meshes with them all so beautifully.

Their days and nights were more lively now that Hatsue and Ryuuko were vocal.

They giggled to show their amusement, squealed to show their delight, cried for hours on end when they were scared, denied of something, hungry, sad, or when they wanted attention.

Oikawa found even less sleep than usual as he stayed up through the depths of the night all the way until morning, holding onto Ryuuko and humming to her, singing her lullabies until her tired little cries turned into exhausted mumbles, then finally into the blessed silence of sleep.

He was grateful that it seemed only Ryuuko felt the need to cry all night. Having both of his twins be needy would have left Oikawa’s nerves utterly frayed to the point of unwarranted aggression.

Some nights, Hanamaki took over his duties, allowing Oikawa sleep for those precious few hours that granted him enough energy to focus throughout the following day. Other days, when he was around, Ushijima would be the one to care for the twins throughout the night.

Ushijima seemed to stay over more often these days, allowing Oikawa to rest in his room to sleep his dark circles away. Ushijima never complained about having to watch over Ryuuko as she screeched into the night, seeming to even enjoy the challenge of placating her.

Oikawa wouldn't complain about _that_ . He was glad that his packmate was kind enough to do this. However, he _did_ object to Ushijima doing it for three consecutive nights in a row.

“You shouldn't neglect your sleep just so that I can catch up on mine,” Oikawa snapped one night, crossing his arms over his chest as he confronted Ushijima.

Ushijima stared at Oikawa, one of Oikawa’s jackets slung over his shoulder where Ryuuko could rest her head and smell her father’s scent until she calmed down.

“You are exhausted! Don't even try to deny it. You're swaying on your feet and you aren't reacting as fast as you used to. How are you going to go to work like this?” Oikawa continued, aggravation clear in his body language as he gestured at Ushijima. “If I can't do this, so can't you, Ushiwaka! Get yourself to bed right now and give me my daughter.”

Ushijima hesitated, but the vicious snarl that left Oikawa’s throat had him passing the child back to her father.

“You can sleep on my bed. I expect you to not get out until eight at the very latest,” he added imperiously. “If I see you get up before eight, you can be _sure_ that I’m locking you out of my apartment for a week.”

“Ah. As you will,” Ushijima said softly.

Oikawa watched as Ushijima walked into his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

And he contentedly moved towards the living room window, staring out of it with Ryuuko’s fingers gripping his hair tightly.

* * *

Hanamaki grinned over at Oikawa the next morning, eyebrows wiggling in an attempt to look sleazy.

“What do you want?” Oikawa demanded, the lack of sleep making him irritable. Hatsue was drooling away on her hands, making muffled sounds as if she hadn't realised that blocking her mouth stopped her from speaking effectively. She was stood upright on his lap, her weight supported by his hands on her hips.

“You scolded Ushiwaka-chan last night. I heard you two, when you started yelling,” Hanamaki elaborated with a wide grin. “I haven't heard you bring that voice out in ages.”

Oikawa blinked again, and he looked down at where Hatsue was now attempting to jump repeatedly on his lap. He shifted his hand to under her armpits, cradling her torso and holding her securely so that she wouldn’t fall.

“Which voice?” Oikawa asked. “The I’m-done-with-your-shit one?”

Hanamaki shook his head, grin widening. “Your I’m-an-alpha-obey-me-now one.”

Oikawa’s bedroom door opened, and Ushijima came out, clad in the jeans he’d worn the other day but with one of Oikawa’s larger sweaters on. It stretched across his chest, but as it was meant to be loose on Oikawa, he didn’t care so much for it.

“It was nothing. I deserved it,” Ushijima said quietly, voice rough with the burr of sleep. He shuffled into the kitchen and reached out to grab at the full pot in the coffeemaker.

Oikawa and Hanamaki watched as Ushijima stirred sugar into his black coffee. One spoonful, barely enough to dull the bitter tang to the hot coffee.

“Ne, Ushijima. Why’d you let him just order you about?” Hanamaki asked with a lilt to his words. “I thought you were an alpha too. Wouldn’t you be a more dominant alpha than Oikawa over here?”

Ushijima took a long sip of his coffee. “I’m not. And I wouldn’t be, if I were,” he added with a glance towards Oikawa.

Oikawa eyed Hanamaki. Hanamaki wisely dropped the subject.

“I can bring the girls to the daycare today. My shift is starting late today, as I was working overtime last night.” Ushijima stated a moment later. “I will see you two off to work today.”

Hanamaki’s grin returned. “Man, this is nice. It’s like having a cute live-in girlfriend,” he teased. “Except she’s six-feet tall, and got legs hairier than mine.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes. “Makki, Ushiwaka-chan wouldn’t be a cute live-in girlfriend. He’d be a cute doorknob. He’s about as expressive as one, too,” he added, winking at Ushijima.

Ushijima raised a brow, watching Hanamaki and Oikawa as they joked around about exactly what kind of doorknob Ushijima would be.

“Are you a push-pull kind of guy, Ushiwaka?” Hanamaki asked, words dripping with lewd innuendo.

“I think he’s a twist and pull kind of man,” Oikawa retorted. "Slow twists and hard pulls, ne?"

Ushijima took another sip of his coffee, before setting the mug down. The ceramic made soft clicking noises against the kitchen counter. “As much as I'm a twist and pull kind of man, I'm not one as much as Oikawa is.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, before Oikawa burst into laughter, something that had Hatsue giggling herself, apparently finding the sounds her father made infectious.

Smiling widely as he stroked his daughter’s back fondly, he then said, “Makki’s infecting you, Ushiwaka-chan! Don’t bully your alpha!” He then remarked, giving Ushijima a leer that was supposed to be angry but came out far too pleased.

Hanamaki was snickering to the point of snorting, and he had to set his breakfast sandwich down so that he didn’t choke on it.

Ushijima’s smile was small but radiant.

“Of course, alpha. I’d never bully you,” he stated in something that should’ve sounded subservient, but was utterly laced with amusement instead.

Oikawa huffed and pouted about how his packmates seemed to love undermining his authority, and Ushijima offered rare quips that showed his very understated humour. Hanamaki had taken the opportunity to draw Ushijima into making bawdy jokes about Oikawa, and Oikawa had only just realised then how many jokes Ushijima had hidden away behind that stoic guise he wore.

When Oikawa began complaining loudly about how the only people ever on his side were his children, Ushijima had then offered an explanation as to why that was:

“They’re contractually obligated to until teenagehood,” he’d deadpanned, making Oikawa stare at him with wide eyes

Oikawa then burst out into laughter again, loud and sudden enough that it made Hatsue cry. He’d had to shush her, all the while fighting the urge to laugh at Ushijima’s sudden playfulness.

His packmates were terrible to him, but Oikawa would never change it for the world.

Though he could do with a lot less backtalk, really.

* * *

During one of the few rare downtimes they had in the lab, Oikawa pulled his phone out, unlocking it to check it for any messages. As he did so, Iwaizumi had peered over his shoulder in a rare moment of nosiness. And he caught sight of Oikawa’s homescreen.

Iwaizumi drew in a sharp intake of breath.

“You have two kids?” Iwaizumi asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.

The announcement had summoned Kuroo to their side, an intensely curious expression on the man’s face.

“Wait--who said something about kids?” Kuroo asked. “You have kids, Oikawa?”

Oikawa smiled brightly, bringing up a clearer photo of his children and turning the screen to show his coworkers. It was the most recent picture he had of them: Hanamaki had them curled up in his arms while he sat cross-legged on a foam-lined floor. They were both staring at the camera with wide and bright eyes, Hatsue wearing a rare smile while Ryuuko had a long line of drool connecting her lips to her bib.

Pridefully, he introduced them.

“This is Hatsue, my firstborn. Ryuuko’s the one next to her, the younger twin,” he explained. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi eyed the phone screen, then at Oikawa. “They’re wonderful,” he agreed slowly. “You’re--what, twenty-two?”

Oikawa nodded. “They’re seven months old. They’re wonderful,” he repeated again. “Hatsue cut her first tooth the other day. She was crying and everything the past couple of days and driving us mad, but she’s been very quiet and good about it once we started giving her chilled teething rings.”

“Hm… you’re really young. Who’s taking care of them while you’re here, Oikawa?” Kuroo asked in a rather nosy manner, not bothering to subtle about gathering information. “Surely the birth parent’s with them right now, right?”

Oikawa shrugged, trying to pretend at nonchalance at the sudden mention of birth parents. He could feign forgiveness all he wanted, but the thought of Nanako had resentment sparking up in his chest. No matter his love for her, which still burned brightly in his mind--he couldn’t stand her.

“No. She’s not. My kids are at a daycare while my pack are too busy to care for them,” Oikawa said briefly.

“Pack?” Kuroo asked, leaning on the counter and resting his chin upon a hand. “I don’t hear that very often nowadays. People seem to disregard packs in favour of _friendship groups_ ,” he added with a wrinkle of his nose. “As if that gives it the same feeling.”

Oikawa smiled. “It’s a pack. It’s got only five of us right now, myself, my kids and two of my friends. We’ve technically been established since I was in high school, but… it didn’t really grow until this year.”

“So when you say _friends_ , do you mean that they’re-- _erk_!”

Iwaizumi conspicuously removed his elbow from where he’d dug it into Kuroo’s ribs. Kuroo closed his mouth, apparently having been prepared to ask more questions.

Iwaizumi nodded at the phone curtly. “They’re pretty cute. They seem happy.”

Oikawa beamed. “They’re the cutest, and they get it completely from me,” he agreed. He ignored Kuroo’s huff of amusement, and added, “If you want, I’ll be happy to introduce them to you one day.”

“I’d like that.” Kuroo said with a smile.

“Hm. Me too,” Iwaizumi agreed a moment later.

Oikawa stared them both in disbelief for the briefest of moments, before nodding. “Well, since I’ve talked about _my_ family--what about you two? Do you have any pups hidden away from the world?” He asked rather boldly.

Iwaizumi shrugged. “I have a dog. A border collie. He’s energetic.”

Kuroo grinned. “Cats. I have three--want to see?” He asked, even as he pulled his phone out to bring up pictures of three gorgeously groomed cats.

Iwaizumi didn’t have any photos of his own pet, but Kuroo seemed to know enough about Iwaizumi’s dog to make jibes about how terribly Iwaizumi kept his pets compared to him.

Watching as they devolved into a small argument about the merits of keeping cats in favour of dogs, Oikawa found himself laughing even as a round of samples were brought in from clients who wanted to have a paternity test done. He watched as they bickered even as Kuroo set up a variety of strip tests as well as the PCR cycler, apparently so used to the flow of their argument that it was just second-nature to them to grumble at each other as they went through their various duties.

His coworkers were ridiculous.

* * *

It was just past midnight, and Ushijima was late.

It was probably just his shift running overtime by several hours, and Oikawa and Hanamaki had gotten tired of waiting for their packmate to visit their apartment. They ate dinner without him, fed and diapered the children, and then promptly curled up on the couch to peer at the small television they had situated in their living room.

During the series of random movies that they’d been watching, Hanamaki had fallen asleep at some point. It wasn’t until they were in the middle of a late rerun of _Aliens_ on some random movie channel Oikawa had found while flicking through the television channels in boredom that Hanamaki’s head slipped to the side and fallen onto Oikawa’s shoulder.

It had been years since Hanamaki had had the lack of presence enough to fall asleep on him, and it had Oikawa grinning as he shifted under his friend, resting an arm around his shoulders and adjusting him enough so that he was comfortable with Hanamaki’s weight leaning against him.

Watching the movie go through scenes that he’d watched dozens of times over, he startled when he heard the front door unlock. He craned his head around and watched as Ushijima shuffled into the dark apartment, careful to remove his shoes quietly.

“I’m home,” Ushijima said quietly.

“Welcome home,” Oikawa replied just as quietly, sweeping his fingers through Hanamaki’s hair. “What kept you?”

“Neonate started choking a few minutes after a late-night birth. We had to dislodge part of the placenta from its throat, which had been inhaled along with an alarming amount of amniotic fluid,” Ushijima explained without much preamble, walking over to sit down next to Oikawa. “The neonate survived, and is currently under observation.”

The couch creaked, and Oikawa let out a soft sigh. He leaned against Ushijima, letting him take the entire weight of him and Hanamaki’s slack body.

Ushijima didn’t budge: he was firm and dependable like that, and Oikawa adored it.

Ushijima placed a hesitant arm around Oikawa’s back, his hand resting upon Hanamaki’s shoulder. “It’s late. You should be asleep,” he murmured. “You have work early tomorrow morning.”

Oikawa nodded. “I wanted to make sure you were home safe first.”

Ushijima paused. “I am. I’m home, safe.”

“And now I can sleep,” Oikawa concluded, peering up at Ushijima with a smile. “Are you staying over tonight?”

“It’s too late to head home. I can help you take Hanamaki back to his room,” Ushijima offered.

“No… don’t bother.” Oikawa shifted his arm around Hanamaki, letting him slip off from his chest and onto his lap. “Sleep here with us. The girls cry loud enough now that we can hear them from out here,” he added.

Ushijima nodded after another moment’s pause, and he leaned out to grab the remote to turn the television off and let the room go dark.

The open window let in only trace amounts of light from outside: the sodium-yellow of streetlamps cast dull shapes across the wall to the side.

Oikawa let out a soft sound of contentment.

His life was--perfect at the moment.

His children were in the other room, he had a pack who he cared for and they cared for him, and he had a job with coworkers that were supportive and kind.

It was hard to believe that things would only get better from here.

Ushijima’s fingers in his hair lulled him to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning:  
> \- sexual ideation  
> \- crude (sexual) language  
> \- alcohol  
> \- emotional breakdowns

His coworkers had attempted to draw him out drinking with them exactly twice after they learned about his children. He’d agreed the second time, after talking to Hanamaki and Ushijima about it.

They’d encouraged him to spent time with his coworkers: it would be unhealthy to spend all of his time at home with his kids, after all, Hanamaki had reasoned.

Ushijima nodded, silently agreeing with Hanamaki’s statement.

And so, Oikawa found himself dressed up in comfortable slacks and a well-fitted sweater, feeling as if he hadn’t changed at all from that confident college-student that had boldly approached a girl he’d met at a party if she wanted to head home with him.

He met Iwaizumi by the train station, eyebrows rising when Iwaizumi gestured him to climb onto his motorcycle.

Oikawa had been passed along a helmet that smelled suspiciously like dog fur. Putting it onto his head, he then carefully sat down on the padded cushion behind Iwaizumi, placing his hands onto Iwaizumi’s waist gingerly. He tried not to tense as Iwaizumi kicked off, the motorcycle coming alive with a loud purr.

“Why the motorcycle?” Oikawa had asked, raising his voice so that he could be heard.

“I don’t intend on drinking tonight,” Iwaizumi explained, voice barely audible over the roar of the engine and the rush of wind in Oikawa’s ear. “And besides--it’s cool, right?”

Oikawa had laughed at that. Very cool indeed. He hadn’t expected the thirty-one year old man to be the type to ride a motorcycle to the bar.

It took them barely ten minutes to arrive at the entertainment district, and Oikawa needed Iwaizumi’s help to get off the bike, his legs oddly shaky from the ride. Iwaizumi stowed away their helmets into the compartment at the back.

Iwaizumi kept a hand on his shoulder the entire time, guiding him away from the parking lot and towards the busy backstreet filled with bars and izakayas. He gestured at a certain bar, and Oikawa had nodded, understanding that they were heading there.

Kuroo and Tendou awaited them in a booth, waving them over with wide grins and suspicious gleams in their eyes.

“Ne, Hajime,” Tendou drawled. “You brought the bike out?”

“It’s not a bike. It’s a motorcycle,” Iwaizumi’s voice had lost all of its previous warmth and humour. “What about it?”

Tendou apparently seemed not to care, shrugging without worry. “Same difference. You don’t usually take it out and show it off, Hajime- _kun_.”

Kuroo then spoke up.

“Is there someone you’re trying to impress, Iwaizumi?” He asked, a wide grin on his face.

Oikawa raised an eyebrow when Iwaizumi shook his head vehemently.

“Did you guys invite someone without telling me? I thought this was supposed to be a coworkers’ night out. If you had--I would’ve brought Makki over with me.” Oikawa said slowly.

“Ah--it’s not that,” Iwaizumi shook a hand. “They’re being _idiots_. Ignore them.”

“What I _mean_ is, Iwaizumi’s trying to seem cooler than he really is to the newest newbie in our lab~!” Tendou chirped, not even flinching when a rather thunderous sound of a shoe hitting the wooden frame of a bench occurred.

Iwaizumi had flinched, cursing, sounding suspiciously like he’d hurt himself by kicking something hard instead of something soft. He leaned over to touch something below the table.

“There’s no need to impress me though,” Oikawa pointed out. “Iwa-chan’s already so amazing!” He added, laying a heavy layer of flattery to his words. “Iwa-chan’s the one to order big and scary policemen about and scold them on their terrible crime scene investigation procedures! How could I not be attracted to Iwa-chan after seeing him do _that?”_

Iwaizumi didn’t look amused at all, though Tendou and Kuroo certainly did.

“Shut the fuck up, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi growled out. “Did you order drinks yet?” He then asked, glowering at Kuroo.

“Nah. We were waiting. Tendou’s said he wants gin and tonic, but really--what’s the point of getting something _boring_ that you can just make at home? I want a tequila sunrise. Hey, actually... Oikawa, mind ordering for us? If you make yourself sound as sweet as you did just now, we might be able to score some free snacks,” Kuroo said with a laugh.

Oikawa grinned. “I can do better than that.”

Iwaizumi raised a brow. “Get me a soda while you’re there.”

He hummed to show that he heard Iwaizumi.

Squeezing his way past Iwaizumi to vacate the booth, he sashayed his way over to the bar with his usual guise of confidence and promptly began to chat up the bartender. Within a few minutes, he returned to the booth with a waitress whose tray was laden with drinks and three snack platters.

Tendou’s eyes had lit up. “Nice, Oikawa! I’m definitely bringing you out with me the next time I go out for drinks! How’d you do this? You sure this was on the house?” He then asked in disbelief.

“It’s the perk of being pretty,” Oikawa simpered, fluttering his eyelashes at Tendou. “It’s hard for people to resist me when I say I want something, y’know?”

Kuroo laughed, and so did Tendou.

They raised their respective glasses at Oikawa, toasting him informally before they began to drink. Iwaizumi had snatched up the soda from the tray and sipped at it with contemplative eyes.

Oikawa grinned as he sipped at his rum and coke.

* * *

Oikawa had never lacked in self-awareness before. He knew everything about himself. The things that were good about himself, the things that weren’t.

He knew that he was attractive. He knew that he was attractive to others. He knew _exactly_ how attractive he was to others.

Now, though, he’d apparently slipped in his perceptiveness.

Having children had skewed his perspective on the world enough that he no longer considered himself “available” to others. He had children to care for, and they were everything to him. Seeking relationships was no longer something he desired, not when it meant that his potential partner might demand that he care less for his children.

No matter his own perception on his availability, the world’s perspective on him had him firmly placed as “single and available” to every alpha, beta and omega out there.

But no matter how much he didn’t want it, it was harder to say no when he was drunk.

He wanted it so bad.

That moment of understanding, of pure and unconditional love that he’d felt for Nanako when he realised he wanted her as his mate from that moment onwards to forever. The knowledge that the body sleeping next to him was his mate, someone who he’d love and care for until the moment he died. Someone who loved and cared for his children the same way that he did.

He wanted it so bad, and when he was drunk, it was harder to remember that the body pressing up next to him with that delicious scent lingering around their neck wasn’t going to offer him the kind of commitment that he wanted.

Laughing giddily as he made his way across the bar with a drink in hand, he pretended that he wasn’t shrinking away from a rather insistent omega that had attached herself to him while he’d gone back to the bar to cajole some more drinks out of the bartender.

The omega had bright brown eyes, sweet and plush lips, and her body was pliant and warm. She pressed herself up completely against him, swaying in time to the soft beat of the bar’s music. She was warm, and smelled so deliciously warm and inviting. It was hot. He felt hot. She was so,  _so_ inviting.

He wanted to dive into her. He wanted her, and she wanted him, and they both knew it.

It was hard. _So_ hard. To not want to succumb to the sweet seduction of that omega, whispering to him that he was so gorgeous and she wanted him and that she knew he wanted her too, because that was _true_ . She was putting out smells that were pummeling what little self-control he had left, and it was affecting him, affecting the people around him because  _he_ was reacting to the invitation she was sending out to him.

His hands were resting upon her hips, fingers almost instinctively pulling at the hem of her skirt. He stopped himself in time before he'd completely stripped her at the bar, before he'd stripped himself and ended up fucking her against the hardwood counter uncaring of anything but the liquid heat that was seeping from the air into his nose to his brain and down to his groin.

Oikawa’s body knew what it wanted, but his mind wanted something else completely.

His mind was strong enough yet to refuse, but his body was growing in strength. He wanted things so badly, and it was going to tear him apart if he didn’t put an end to it as fast as he could.

He stumbled his way back to the booth, all but tumbling into Kuroo’s lap in his hurry. He spilled most of his cocktail on himself, staining the fabric of his sweater with alcohol and sticky, sweet fruit juice.

“Whoops--sorry Kuroo-chan!” Oikawa exclaimed, the low purr of his words unmodulated in his momentary panic and uncontrolled sensuality.

He crawled across the bench, plastering himself up against Tendou, where he would be as far away from the omega as possible. The omega was standing awkwardly by their booth.

“Ne, Tendou- _chaaaan_ ,” Oikawa drawled out his coworker’s name, wrapping an arm around his neck in an overt show of possessiveness. He didn’t missed the way Kuroo’s eyes widened, and Iwaizumi’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t miss how the omega had stiffened. “Lemme have your sex! On the beach. Sex on the beach. I want more drinks,” he added.

“Ah. Right. Here ya go, Oikawa,” Tendou said rather slowly.

Oikawa snatched up the brightly coloured cocktail, not even deeming the omega worthy of watching as she turned around and scurried off back into the crowd, having taken the hint that he was rebuffing her. He took a long draught of the alcohol, feeling how it burned on its way down his throat.

Tendou seemed to relax now that Oikawa no longer had his body all over his, and had settled enough to shove Oikawa off of his lap and onto the bench between himself and Kuroo. 

“I thought she’d never leave,” Oikawa said with a wrinkle of his nose, setting Tendou’s cocktail down.

Tendou reclaimed his drink with a haughty sniff.

Oikawa leaned heavily against Kuroo, who was at his back, and he groaned out a pained, “I hate this.”

A large hand came up and rested upon the back of his neck. It then drifted up and into his hair. Kuroo swept his fingers through Oikawa’s hair.

“Judging by how you were acting just a moment ago--I thought you’d be looking for someone to take back home,” Iwaizumi said a moment later. "That was borderline indecent. You've incited something on the dancefloor, that's catching onto the others," he added, sounding almost amused as he leaned back, glancing back towards the bar.

The smell of lust and slick, inviting heat washed over Oikawa again and he could feel something within him  _hunger_. It almost made him whimper, fingers clenching into fists as he forced himself to turn away from that smell. Those  _smells_. So rich and sweet and fulfilling.

Oikawa shook his head. “That’s not--no. I can’t. I can’t. Ryuuko and Hatsue deserve more than that.”

“Your kids, right?” Tendou asked, curiously.

Oikawa nodded blindly, curling up onto the table, face-down into the wood and his head cradled by his arms. “They deserve so much more than that. More than me trying to find someone to fuck. They deserve better. They deserve a parent who loves them, not _me_. They deserve so much more than Nanako abandoning them. She’d left them, hadn’t even looked at them and she told me she wanted them out of her sight even though she hadn’t even looked at them.” He let out a soft, pathetic sob. “I want someone who wants them as much as I do.”

Kuroo’s hand was warm upon his scalp.

“I shouldn’t have drunk so much,” he rasped out. He was speaking too much. He was behaving so _openly_ to men he’d barely known for more than a month. He wasn’t in full control of all of his faculties.

His tolerance had always been pitifully low. College may have brought it up enough that he could knock back a few shots, anything more than his tolerance had him feeling miserable for days.

“You’re still young. Making mistakes is good,” Iwaizumi stated.

“Not when you have two lives depending on your choices,” Oikawa replied distantly.

Kuroo patted him, and that was that. Oikawa didn’t get up from the seat to return to the bar for the rest of the night.

* * *

When time came to part their separate ways, Oikawa had sobered up enough to walk without assistance and no longer giggled madly at everything. He felt more in control, less like a mess that threatened to break apart at the slightest hint of another’s enticing scent.

Tendou, on the other hand, had degenerated with each drink he ordered and had left with Kuroo as a giggly, pink-faced mess, chortling about something or another.

They watched as Kuroo had to sling Tendou’s arm around his neck, supporting him as they wobbled out of the district to grab a taxi. Then, Iwaizumi led him back to the parking lot and drove him all the way back home.

He didn’t say a word when, halfway through the journey back to Oikawa's home, Oikawa leaned heavily against his back to cradle his head upon Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

When Iwaizumi came to a stop by Oikawa’s apartment complex, he stopped Oikawa from stumbling back home immediately.

“Hey, Oikawa.”

“What is it, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asked.

“Don’t let yourself miss out on life just because you think that’s what your children deserve from you,” Iwaizumi stated. “If you want to go out and find someone to tumble around with--don’t let your children stop you from taking that from you. Stability is good and all, but that’s why you have a pack. Your children have everything they need from your pack. You're still young, and trying to find your place in the world, and I don't think that letting your children be the ultimate reason why you do things is letting you do that. Finding a lifemate is--not something you want to force. Do what you need to do to find the mate you want. Not the mate you think you should want. For all that your children are important, _you_ are, too.”

Iwaizum finished saying his piece, and he got back onto his motorcycle, revving it up and driving away with a roar of his engine.

Oikawa stared after him and his disappearing tail-lights before turning around and heading up to the home he shared with Hanamaki, Hatsue and Ryuuko.

* * *

When he entered his apartment, it was three in the morning.

Hanamaki was still awake, though Ushijima was fast asleep on the couch next to him with Ryuuko and Hatsue curled up on his broad chest.

Oikawa shucked his shoes off, tucking them to the side of the entryway. He then moved to sit down on the floor in front of Hanamaki. He let out a drawn-out sigh, leaning against Hanamaki’s legs and burying his face into his friend’s lap.

“What’s up with you?” Hanamaki asked in amusement, brushing his fingers through Oikawa’s hair.

“I almost went into rut at the bar.”

He knew by the silence that Hanamaki’s eyebrows had rose.

“There was an omega. She was… she smelt so good,” Oikawa explained stiltedly. “She must’ve been near her heat. She kept touching me and praising me and it was almost enough that I forgot myself. I wanted it so _bad_ , Makki. It’s been so long since I’ve smelt something like that and it...”

“You don’t need to explain it,” Hanamaki said softly.

“Iwa-chan said I should’ve just gone with her. That I should've just fucked her until I got it out of my system.” Or something along those lines.

Hanamaki fell silent again.

“He said that I should’ve made mistakes, because it’s all just a process of eventually finding my mate. Or something like that.” Oikawa laughed bitterly. “I found her alright. She didn’t want me.”

“She didn’t want the children,” Hanamaki corrected gently, and Oikawa could feel his fingers running through Oikawa’s hair again. “She didn’t want Hatsue and Ryuuko.”

“She didn’t want me.” Oikawa repeated softly, shoulders trembling. He wasn’t sober. If he’d been sober, he wouldn’t have tears pooling into his eyes, and his voice wouldn’t be trembling like this. His eyes dripped with tears that felt like molten lava. “She didn’t love me enough to want to stay with me.”

And just like that, he was reminded of the huge hole in his life that Nanako had left behind. The place by his side where she used to lay, the hand in his own that would guide him, the smile on her face that had mirrored his own. It was a gaping, bleeding gash in his chest that he hadn't acknowledged at all until this point.

He'd always loved to the point of obsession, his passions overcoming him and leaving him little more than a creature of instinct and yearning when it came to what he loved. He loved to the point where his love _was_ who he was, and she'd left him and torn out everything that he'd built up concerning himself and her. Three years of being in love with her. Three years of his life, in which he'd lived and built himself up for  _her_ and she was gone.

Oikawa trembled and broke and sobbed into Hanamaki’s arms that night, unable to reign his grief in even as another, larger body came over to rest against his back.

Hanamaki and Ushijima held him throughout the night as he was unable to do anything. Unable to stop loving her. Unable to stop himself from crying. Unable to stop himself from recovering.

* * *

 

When morning came, he woke to find himself lying upon the living room floor carpet. Hollow and drained from the night before, but there was a strange, fluttering sensation in his chest that had wonder if it had all been a dream.

But no, the warmth surrounding him was real.

Hanamaki was pressed up against his back, and Ushijima had an arm slung around him. Hatsue and Ryuuko were tucked between him and Ushijima, and Oikawa had never felt so-- _empty_ before. It wasn't until it was gone that he realised how resentful he'd been, and how burdened he'd been by Nanako's departure.

And now, all that emotion was all gone.

He found himself crying all over again, laughing quietly to himself at how stupid he'd been all of these months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus begins Oikawa's healing process, about 8 months late lmao.


	9. Chapter 9

Returning to work the following weekday had been strange.

Iwaizumi and Kuroo hadn’t made any mention of their night out, and Tendou seemed content to only refer it in passing.

They hadn’t made reference to how Oikawa had almost lost control of his libido at the bar, nor how inappropriately he’d acted with Tendou. They hadn’t made any sign to say that they recalled Oikawa’s drunken breakdown.

Really, if anything, his coworkers seemed even more friendly with him, as if that terrible night out had brought them metaphorically closer.

Oikawa had always been tactile. It was just who he was, but what he’d never gotten used to was other people being tactile with  _ him _ .

He’d always been the one to initiate contact with others. Hatsue and Ryuuko were too young still to initiate touch out of their own need, but they would cry out for him when they desired his attention. Hanamaki and Ushijima were people who just never felt the need to affirm their relationship through touch, but Oikawa  _ did _ have such a need.

He reaffirmed his place within his pack through touch, reassuring himself of their presence, their place within his life.

Each press of their skin together was something that grounded Oikawa down.

So being acquainted with people who made excuses to rest their hand upon him, brushing past him, brushing the feelings of forlorn loneliness away, had left him constantly conflicted. Wary, if he were being completely honest, even if he ultimately felt  _ content  _ by the unsolicited touching.

Kuroo would rest his hand upon Oikawa’s neck occasionally, a calming touch to anchor him.

Iwaizumi would brush their shoulders together whenever he passed by, and gave him a firm nod of assurance when he felt unsure.

Tendou would occasionally pop into the experimental lab to cajole Oikawa into joking around with him (and occasionally hiding Kuroo’s lab equipment and running off snickering when he realised they’d placed his calipers behind the test tubes) until Akaashi came out of his office to scold everyone back into professionalism.

It was strange, but he appreciated it all the same.

It was these gentle points of contact that had him felt endeared to his coworkers, returning their quiet friendship with quiet enthusiasm.

Tendou enjoyed drawing Oikawa away from Kuroo’s side to show him cold-cases and previously solved cases alike, bouncing ideas off of him and teaching him exactly how criminal profiling occurred. Tendou’s eyes would light up with excitement as he explained the difficulties in identifying suspects who took the effort to hide their identity, and Oikawa was charmed by Tendou’s passion. It was easy to sink into conversation with the redhead: for all Tendou’s unsettling body language, his passion was something Oikawa could easily empathise with.

Iwaizumi still brought him drinks and snacks from outside whenever he left the lab, leaving drinks still cold and covered in condensation on his desk no matter how much Kuroo complained about the possible contaminants within the lab. He would gruffly tell Oikawa to stop staring at him with sappy dog-like eyes, and then promptly scold Oikawa for not wearing gloves and to put his goggles on properly, taking the opportunity to manhandle Oikawa back into workplace proper attire.

Kuroo enjoyed mocking Oikawa for needing to be cared for like that, grinning easily all the while as he guided Oikawa through his work.

It made it less difficult for Oikawa as he followed Kuroo through the SOPs he was meant to learn, learning the laboratory’s complicated set up, the different locations of all of the reagents and the procedures he was meant to follow when a certain sample came into their lab, when he knew that his coworkers didn’t think any less of him.

He appreciated that his coworkers seemed not to care about the many problems that plagued him still.

* * *

And so, days passed by into months, and Hatsue and Ryuuko grew up like bamboo shoots through thawed soil after a snowy winter.

They were steadily reaching their ninth month, and Ryuuko had started pulling herself up onto furniture to stand unsteadily on weak legs.

Hanamaki had had a near heart attack when he noticed Ryuuko attempting to climb out of her crib that night despite her physical inability to pull herself up to beyond her feet, and had promptly gone through the entire apartment in a futile attempt to babyproof everything.

Ushijima had joined Hanamaki in his crusade, and had even thoughtfully bought some sturdy boxes and storage containers around the girls’ height that they could use to cruise around.

During their lunch break, Oikawa joyfully recounted how Hatsue had seemed jealous of her twin and had promptly copied her, trying to stand up using the aid of the living room couch, and the two girls had toddled along on their unsteady legs while Oikawa videoed them in pride.

“So, when can I meet your children?” Kuroo asked when Oikawa had finally lapsed off into silence to shovel some salmon cubes into his mouth.

“When I get to meet  _ yours _ .” Oikawa rebutted, a wry grin on his face, swallowing the mouthful with minor difficulty.

“Sure. Bring your pack over to my place this weekend.” Kuroo offered. “I’ve got nothing planned, and I’ll be happy to entertain guests for a weekend.”

“Oh. Uh… alright then.”

Oikawa exchanged information with Kuroo in bemusement, wondering at how easy Kuroo made everything seem.

* * *

A day before they were due to visit Kuroo, Oikawa found himself penned inside of his bedroom with Ushijima, who had a stern look on his face.

Ushijima had entered while Oikawa had been searching for Hatsue’s rabbit plush, closing the door behind him with a very decisive and firm click of the lock.

It had Oikawa straightening up immediately, eyes wide as he stared at Ushijima. Something serious, then, Oikawa thought, peering at Ushijima’s face with consideration.

Ushijima had a frown on his face, uncomfortable but resolute in whatever decision he had made.

It was strange to realise he’d known Ushijima long enough to tell his moods and thoughts by just the slightest adjustment of his eyebrows, the set of his jaw and the downward turn of his lips. He wondered if he was just as open to Ushijima as well, and found himself surprised to realise that he didn’t mind the thought of it.

“What’s up, Ushiwaka-chan?” Oikawa asked, setting down the armful of toys he’d only just managed to unearth from a set of drawers. He slid the drawers shut, turning to face Ushijima properly.

“I’m an omega.”

Oikawa blinked up at Ushijima, looking utterly perplexed by the admission.

Ushijima shifted from foot to foot, uncharacteristically unsettled.

“I thought you should know, considering we are pack now. I don’t recall if I have ever told you. I take supplements to keep my smell suppressed. It is to prevent patients at the hospital from--reacting to the personnel, and I only recently recalled that it may have prevented you from realising this fact.” He said quietly.

“I don’t think you ever have,” Oikawa replied slowly. “And honestly, I never noticed. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re an omega or not. I didn’t accept you into my pack because you were one. I accepted you because my children like you. Your smell agreed with me. Hanamaki likes you. You’re reliable, and you hold me accountable for what I do.”

Ushijima hesitated, before nodding. “I was unsure if you’d wanted me solely for my… affinity to children.”

“It certainly helped, Ushiwaka-chan!” Oikawa quipped, a grin appearing on his face.

He reached out to pat Ushijima’s shoulder, before pulling him in and pressing his cheek against Ushijima’s neck. He pressed his lips against the side of Ushijima’s nape, a hand reaching up to grip the back of his shirt.

“But don’t worry, Ushiwaka-chan... Wakatoshi. I want you for more than just your affinity with children. I want you because you mean more to me than just that,” Oikawa murmured softly, words solely meant for Ushijima’s ears. “You’re mine. You’re my pack, and you’re important to me.”

“Ah.” The hairs on the back of Ushijima’s neck rose, and Oikawa eyed Ushijima’s neck almost warily.

“I mean, it’s great having someone around who knows what to do. I’d be so lost without you to help me,” Oikawa remarked, pulling away and grinning widely at Ushijima, as if he hadn’t noticed the other’s physiological reaction to his closeness.

It gained meaning with realising that Ushijima was an omega.

Oikawa wondered if he had to practice keeping his physical distance from Ushijima. He’d always drew comfort at Ushijima’s touch, the solidity of his form against Oikawa’s. He didn’t want to cross lines by playing with his packmate’s physiology, drawing him close through the instinctive magnetism that drew omegas to alphas and alphas to omegas.

It would be unfair on them both, with Oikawa taking advantage of Ushijima’s instinctive deference and Ushijima taking advantage of Oikawa’s instinctive love.

The tall, tall man moved to sit down on Oikawa’s bed. “You would be,” he agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “Very lost. I have no doubts about that.”

Oikawa snorted, and he sat down next to Ushijima. “Don’t say it like that! It’s like you don’t have any faith in me.”

“You just stated that you’d be lost without me.” Ushijima remarked. Had anyone said it, it would have been arrogant and smug, but Ushijima stated it quite like a fact.

Oikawa rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like  _ that _ . I just meant that I’d be struggling a little more without you.”

Even as he and Ushijima quietly bickered about the semantics of what Oikawa had meant, there was a small thought at the back of his mind that continued to twist and turn over the smell of Ushijima that kept clinging to his every pore.

Ushijima’s smell was--thunderstorm, thunderous and heavy, the onslaught of humidity that let one’s nose filled up to the brim and yet, there was the subtle sweetness of flowers to his scent. Stronger than the last time he’d taken the time to smell his packmate. Much like opening the door to a greenhouse after having been caught in a storm; it was a haven of freshness and sweetness in the midst of an overpowering smell.

It finally made sense why he smelled so good.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2LDK means 2 bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen.

Unlike Oikawa and Hanamaki, who lived in a 2LDK apartment that often housed more people than it was meant to support, Kuroo lived in a rather cushy house in the suburbs of Tokyo.

It was a comfortable two-storey house with a traditionally Japanese exterior and an unkempt garden at the front.

Oikawa had barely rung the doorbell by the gates when he was accosted by a very curious cat whose coat gleamed a bright white and bespoke of hours of tender pampering. The cat meowed at him from its vantage in front of the gate, regally lifted tail flicking from side to side.

Was it in interest?

He held a gloved hand out for the cat to sniff, unsure of the protocol when it came to cats. You did this with dogs, right? So surely it was okay with cats too, he reasoned.

The cat didn’t seem to care, turning its back on him and jumping back over the fence to disappear into the garden.

“That was Hime,” Oikawa explained to Hanamaki, who peered after the cat in disinterest. “Kuroo has two other cats. You won’t believe how many photos he has of them, Makki!”

Hanamaki snorted. "As if you can talk. Your phone's filled with photos of the girls," he complained. "You'd think that Oikawa'd have the decency to take photos with his pack, but instead, he decides to favour the squalling living potatoes that aren't half as cute as I am."

Oikawa snickered at Hanamaki's melodrama. He briefly missed Ushijima's presence. Ushijima usually deterred Hanamaki from making any complaints after all.

Unluckily enough for them, Ushijima had been unable to join them that day, having had a shift scheduled that he couldn’t reschedule due to the lack of available personnel. As such, it was just Oikawa, Hanamaki, and his two children against Kuroo with his army of cats (though this was, of course, exaggerated).

The gate opened just as Hanamaki was about to ask a question, and Kuroo was revealed behind the wooden door.

Kuroo was warmly bundled up in a woolen overcoat, a scarf hazardously wrapped around his neck. In one of his hands, he held a mug of steaming liquid. It smelt like instant hot chocolate, thin and watery.

“Hey there, Oikawa. And Oikawa’s friend. And Oikawa’s offspring,” Kuroo added, eyes dropping to the twins who sat quietly in their perambulator, looking around with that infantile curiosity they had been honing for the past three months.

“I’m Hanamaki Takahiro.” The beta said, waving lazily. “Nice to meet you, Kuroo.”

“Could we come in?” Oikawa asked. “It’s a little sunny, and I’m worried that they’re going to get sunburned. Or get melanoma. Sunscreen isn’t always the best for babies, since they might ingested it by accident, but their skin is so thin that it doesn't offer them adequate sun protection--”

“Uhhhh yeah, sure. Come on in,” Kuroo interrupted, having learned that letting Oikawa speak about his children would lead to a never-ending lecture about babycare. “Just make sure to watch the catnip as you come in. Ouji doesn’t like it when people that aren’t him mess with it.”

Ouji: another one of Kuroo’s cat with black and white fur. Named for his snooty behaviour, according to Kuroo. He was nowhere to be seen however, though Oikawa wasn't going to take his chances after having been warned by Kuroo.

Oikawa wrangled the pram past the front gate, managing to manoeuver past the raised threshold with the ease that came with practice. He avoided the catnip (was that the small little plant just off of the stone path? Or the bigger, round-leafed bush?) with Hanamaki dogging his every action. Oikawa followed Kuroo through the garden and then into Kuroo’s home.

When he entered the house and kicked his shoes off, he realised something.

It was neater than he expected.

Kuroo’s workspace at the lab had always been cluttered despite the guidelines that had always dictated that the counter space be clear of unnecessary equipment and belongings. Unlike his workplace and garden, Kuroo’s living room actually seemed _organised_.

Books were tucked away neatly into the bookshelves, ordered by the authors’ names and publishing company; the carpet was mercifully hair-and-dust free, and the furniture was set out in a way that made sense.

“Ne, Kuroo-chan, I’m surprised,” Oikawa remarked cheerfully. “I thought it’d be messier.”

Kuroo waved his hand, grinning lazily. “I cleaned it up because I was having guests over. Don’t go upstairs--I didn’t fix anything up up there. Unless you want to be offended by the sheer mess I've made up there.”

Oikawa shook his head. "I'm good. It's just a wonder seeing your immediate vicinity resembling neatness."

Hanamaki assisted Oikawa in pulling the children out of the pram and into Kuroo’s living room, where they began to roam the new environment with wide eyes and even wider reach once free of their bulky jackets.

Oikawa desperately hoped that Kuroo had put sharp things out of reach of his kids.

“So which one’s which again? Hatsue’s the one with the spot on her chin, right?” Kuroo asked, gesturing vaguely at his own face as he sat down on a couch, watching the children in curiosity as they began to attempt crawling across the carpet and towards the various bookshelves that lined his walls.

“Yup. She’s got the whole princess-look already going for her with that little beauty spot,” Hanamaki said with a grin. He joined Kuroo on the couch, apparently completely at ease despite having met Kuroo for the first time. He had his coat off, folded up on his lap. “Considering how Oikawa treats her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up as one too.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes, moving towards Hatsue when she seemed intent on grabbing one of the books on the lower shelves of Kuroo’s bookcases. “I’m not _that_ bad,” he retorted. “Ushiwaka’s the one to constantly give into their whims.”

Hatsue looked unrepentant and unamused when he pried her fingers off of the hardcover book. She grabbed it again, making an angry sound when Oikawa prevented her from pulling it out of the shelf. She seemed to understand that he didn’t want her to pull anything out, however, and moved on to peering around the walls with wide-eyed curiosity.

Ryuuko had contented herself with attempted to climb up onto one of the spare armchairs, her chubby arms still too weak to pull her any higher than to her tiptoes.

“Ushiwaka… the other packmate of yours?” Kuroo asked with a raised brow. “The one that couldn’t come today?”

Oikawa nodded.

“His name's actually Ushijima. Oikawa just calls him Ushiwaka as a nickname. He’s working at the hospital as a nurse right now,” Hanamaki confirmed as well.

“And he’s about your age too?” Kuroo continued to ask. “As I’ve said before, Oikawa--I don’t usually see people your age and younger with an established pack. It’s a pretty traditional thing, after all.”

Hanamaki laughed at that. “Oikawa’s a pretty traditional alpha, really! And nah, Ushijima’s older than us. About… twenty-eight, right, Oikawa?”

Oikawa thought about it quickly. Ushijima’s birthday had been in August, from what he remembered. They’d celebrated it quietly, surprising Ushijima with a cake that had its icing smudged by Ryuuko’s enthusiastic hand-waving.

“Yeah. He’s the same age as you, Kuroo-chan,” he added with a wry grin over at his coworker.

“Huh.” The sound of Kuroo’s voice made Oikawa glance over at Kuroo, seeing how his features were now set into a thoughtful expression. “Is he an alpha too?”

“No.” Oikawa stated firmly.

“So you’re the only alpha in your pack then?” Kuroo’s question sounded more like a statement. Kuroo sat back, relaxing against the cushions upon the couch. “I didn’t take you for that kind of person, Oikawa.”

Hanamaki’s eyebrows had rose at Kuroo’s words.

Ryuuko tumbled off of the couch and onto her backside with a surprised sound. Oikawa immediately moved towards her, picking her up into his arms while staring at Kuroo with a wary look on his face.

“Explain,” Oikawa demanded.

“Yeah--what do you mean by that, Kuroo?” Hanamaki asked, sitting up with a look of suspicion on his face.

“Just that you’d want undisputable leadership in your pack,” Kuroo said nonchalantly. “Did you pick Ushijima specifically because he’s not an alpha?”

Oikawa’s eyebrows furrowed in irritation and offense. “Of course not!” He snapped. “I don’t _pick_ people because of what they are!”

His pack were _precious_ to him beyond what he would reasonably state, and to have Kuroo imply that he’d chosen them for _personal comfort_ had him furious.

Ryuuko had tensed up at Oikawa’s raised voice, and he attempted to soothe her by rubbing her back. She buried her face into his neck, little arms wrapping around him. The small gestures she made calmed him down, but he still turned his back on Kuroo, walking towards the window to stare out of it in lingering anger.

Through the faint reflection on the glass, he could see that Kuroo raised his hands in a show of surrender and peace, his blase grin never fading. “Don’t get so angry, Oikawa! It was just an observation that I had. It’s good that you don’t care--most packs that I’ve heard about don’t have more than one alpha anyway,” he added with a shrug.

“You sound like you want one,” Hanamaki said suddenly. “Is that why you’re grilling Oikawa about _our_ pack?”

Oikawa glanced over his shoulder to see Hanamaki facing Kuroo with a sharp glint to his eye.

“I won’t lie--the last time I’ve been in a pack was years ago, back in high school,” Kuroo said with another shrug. “It’d be nice to get that kind of closeness with others again.”

“What happened?” Hanamaki then asked, intentionally insensitive to Kuroo’s vague language.

“Ah--differences in opinions concerning membership,” Kuroo said delicately, teeth bared in a terrible semblance of a smile. “We had an alpha who felt uncomfortable in a pack that contained two other alphas and only one beta. We disbanded when the small issues they had grew into outright conflict.”

There was a wealth of history behind those words, but Hanamaki didn’t seem willing to ask him to explain it. Oikawa didn’t feel like it either, and they lapsed off into silence.

Kuroo let out a sigh. “Anyway--I invited you over to meet my cats, right? Let me try to wrangle them into this room so that you guys can meet them.”

Kuroo got off the couch and left the living room.

Only then did Oikawa turn back around, joining Hanamaki on the couch. The place where Kuroo had been sitting smelt of tangy, fresh lemons and freshly pressed cotton sheets. He’d always assumed that the latter had been the smell of the lab lingering on his coworker, but it seemed otherwise.

Hatsue had crawled her way over to Hanamaki, and he had her on his lap.

“He doesn’t seem that bad of a person,” Hanamaki murmured quietly. “A little provocative though. Do you think he was being honest about wanting a pack again? He seemed to want to join ours, judging by the way he was talking.”

Oikawa shrugged at that. “It’s not up to me to decide.”

Hanamaki grinned at that, and he took hold of Hatsue’s arms, making her wave them at Oikawa. Hatsue had a small frown on her face, her head bobbing as she tried to follow the movement of her own hands.

“You know, he kind of reminds me of you, Oikawa; being intentionally rude to incite an honest reaction out of someone else. I wouldn’t be opposed if he’s like you, though I’d want to get to know him better before you fully induct him into the pack.”

Oikawa blinked at that.

“I guess,” Oikawa agreed belatedly.

* * *

By the time Kuroo had returned with two cats in his arms and the third cat nowhere to be seen, Oikawa had managed to snoop around his kitchen.

The lingering smells of cat fur and cotton sheets told him just how often Kuroo would use this facilities. Not very often at all. Kuroo’s smell was most concentrated near the entrance of the kitchen, where the fridge was located. At the back, closer to the stove, Kuroo’s scent was barely there.

The kitchen was utilitarian save for the extremely fancy oven that had been build into the wall. The pans in the cupboards looked barely-used save for a pot that looked as if had some poor lifeform scorched onto the bottom of it, and the majority of his utensils were scratch-free. Kuroo’s fridge was packed with small bags of miso paste and half-empty cans of non-perishables, as if he’d kept forgetting he’d already opened one and had put it into the fridge.

It was amusing to think how Kuroo, for all of his scientific prowess, was apparently unable to cook. Cooking was somewhat similar to chemistry, after all. It was part of the reason why he’d enjoyed his lab courses back at university so much.

Oikawa had seated himself on the carpet in the living room a minute before Kuroo came back to the living room.

“Ouji escaped before I could grab him, but here we go… This is Hime. She likes to stay outside, stalking the fence and warding off other cats,” Kuroo introduced to them, setting down the pure-white cat onto the coffee table in front of the couch. “And this is Oujou-sama. She’s the mother of both Hime and Ouji.” He held up a rather snooty-looking cat the same colour as Hime, except she was notably larger with silkier fur.

“You named them after royal titles?” Hanamaki asked in amusement.

Kuroo grinned. “They’re _very_ proud cats,” he explained. “And they know just how entitled they are. It was fitting to name them as such.”

Oikawa watched as Hime walked over to him, tail swishing elegantly as she nosed his thigh. She didn’t seem interested in letting him touch her, slinking away when he raised his hand to try to pet her.

Oujou apparently wasn’t interested in moving from her perch on the glass surface of the coffee table, lazily licking at her paw to groom herself.

“Right. I didn’t mention that they don’t really like to be touched. I’d recommend keeping your kids away from them until they know not to grab fur,” Kuroo added with a wry smile. “These two are pretty finicky about touch. Ouji’s much more friendly, but it really depends on his mood.”

“They’re pretty cats,” Oikawa commented, smiling at how Hatsue crawled after Hime, squealing when Hime kept sauntering out of her reach.

“Believe me, they know,” Kuroo said with a laugh.

Hanamaki drew Kuroo into conversation about taking care of cats, and Oikawa listened in occasionally, though he didn’t attempt to follow the conversation.

They’d implicitly agreed to pretend as if their previous conversation had never happened, but Oikawa couldn’t help but mull over the information he’d gleaned from Kuroo.

He was (probably) an alpha. He wanted a pack. He was inclined towards Oikawa’s pack in particular.

But why was that?

It wasn’t as if Oikawa was _close_ to Kuroo by any means after all.

The only thing that had Oikawa tied to Kuroo was their work. They didn't have much in common beyond that, save for a very similar sense of humour and a way of manipulating the people around him.

But he couldn't deny that he _liked_ Kuroo. He liked his scent, found it pleasing and calming to detect. He liked how Kuroo would touch the back of his neck and calm him when he got a little too focused on his work. He liked how Kuroo would tease and joke around with him, pry apart the jovial facade Oikawa always had on to reveal the vulnerable twenty-two year old underneath who just wanted someone to be with him.

Well, no. He didn't like that. But he couldn't deny that it was happening. Kuroo was unveiling him, and it was terrifying to know that he was being exposed to someone he hadn't pledged his life to.

Perhaps Kuroo just wanted someone that could claim him as a member of their pack, solely for the sense of community that it could grant him. If Kuroo wanted to become  _pack_ solely for that reason alone, Oikawa wasn't so sure if he wanted Kuroo in his pack.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to be around Kuroo in  _general_ if that were the case.

Oikawa had always regarded his pack as something close to sacrosanct. Important beyond all else.

His pack... They were a group of people that Oikawa could barely live without, people that were closer to him than his own family were. If he'd regarded his family as important to him as his pack, his family would have been the ones to watch Hatsue and Ryuuko grow up with him.

Hanamaki and Ushijima were integral parts to his life, as were his daughters, and he would not compromise any of them no matter how much he enjoyed the presence of other people.

However, Oikawa supposed he'd reserve judgement until more facts came about to reveal exactly what Kuroo wanted from him.

* * *

Kuroo was awkward around children.

There was no other way to describe it. He looked out of his depth as he followed after Ryuuko, who was crawling towards the dining room with all of the determination that her little body could contain.

“Hey, uh, you’re going to bump into that chair if you keep moving like that,” Kuroo stated. “Kid, you might want to stop.”

He was decidedly ignored by the nine-month-old, who continued to crawl in that exact direction without care that she was going to marry her forehead into the extremely sturdy wooden leg of the dining chair.

Oikawa couldn’t help but laugh as Kuroo had to swoop in, gingerly grabbing Ryuuko before she could knock into the hair. Ryuuko let out a surprised sound, before squealing in delight that she was being swung through the air.

Kuroo winced at the high-pitched sound, holding her out at arm’s length.

“You _willingly_ live with this noise?” He asked Hanamaki, who nodded seriously.

“Yup. She gets even louder when Ushiwaka brings out the airplane to feed her,” Hanamaki remarked with a grin. “She’s fascinated with movement.”

“At least that’s something you can use to distract her,” Kuroo said quietly, eyeing Ryuuko before he set her down on the floor.

Ryuuko didn’t realise she had to use her hands to support her upper body, and promptly landed face-first into the carpet. She made muffled sounds of alarm, hastily rolling onto her back, then she grinned up at Kuroo, showing off the few teeth she had.

Kuroo laughed.

“Oikawa, your kids are so dumb.”

Oikawa eyed Kuroo. “I hope you don’t mean that,” he said lightly.

“Nah. Of course I don’t. You know what I mean,” Kuroo teased, walking over to sit down on his couch again. Ouji, the formerly missing cat, promptly made himself home on Kuroo’s lap.

Oikawa watched as the cat purred in happiness when Kuroo instinctively began to pet him.

Hanamaki grinned over at Oikawa. “You know, I kinda agree with Kuroo when he says that. Your kids _are_ pretty dumb sometimes.”

“Sometimes is the key word here!” Oikawa exclaimed. “They’re intelligent all the time, except for those very brief moments of _sometimes_.”

Hanamaki and Kuroo exchanged amused glances, and Oikawa rolled his eyes in exaggerated disgust. He then glanced over to the side.

“Hatsue’s going to drool all over your books if you don’t save them, Kuroo,” Oikawa said, not making a move to stop his daughter. If Kuroo was going to made jokes at his expense, he wasn’t going to help Kuroo keep his books in a sanitary and whole condition.

Kuroo let out a yelp, scrambling off the couch to save the aforementioned books.

Ouji let out an angry hiss at having been dislodged, and curled up on Kuroo’s cushions in a fit of pique.

“Me too, Ouji,” Hanamaki remarked in idle amusement, leaning back on the couch with a lazy grin. “That’s exactly how I feel too.”


	11. Chapter 11

Returning home had been an exercise of patience.

In the few hours that they’d stayed at Kuroo’s home, Kuroo had managed to endear himself to Hatsue to the point that she refused to let him out of her sight.

After he’d picked her up and off of his books, she’d been smitten by him. She crawled after him, used his pants leg to pull herself up to her feet, wanted to only be carried by him and fed by him, and she’d giggle at him whenever he attempted to speak to her.

And as such, returning home had looked to be near _impossible_.

Hatsue had burst into tears whenever they attempted to pull her away from Kuroo, and Kuroo had looked so close to annoyance that Oikawa, too, had become aggressively frustrated.

He didn’t like seeing anyone looking at his children with sharp eyes, no matter how justified the look was. Even if Oikawa himself was feeling so _angry_ at how she refused to let go of Kuroo’s shirt, he didn’t want anyone to turn their own anger towards Hatsue. It was hypocritical, but he’d long since accepted these feelings as a part of being a parent.

He’d managed to get Hatsue out of Kuroo’s arms, but she’d still managed to attach herself to him via a startling firm grip on his clothes.

“Hatsue, _please_ ,” Oikawa had groused out, trying to untangle her fingers from Kuroo’s sweater. Her grip had seemed to tighten with each failed attempt, as impossible as that was to imagine. “We need to go home, sweetie, _please_ let go of him and stop crying.”

Ryuuko had curled up in Hanamaki’s arms, sucking on her fingers and had drifted off half-asleep, having tired herself out crawling all around Kuroo’s living room throughout the day. At least they’d had one child who behaved.

Hatsue had still refused to let go of Kuroo even after twenty minutes of coaxing.

Her face had turned completely red from the force of her tears, and she was hiccuping, breathing heavily and sobbing her little throat all raw. This had been the first time he saw her so upset, and it had made his every action even more aggressive and rough.

Oikawa had wanted her to _stop_ looking so upset; he _hated_ that he was making her cry but they really couldn’t stay.

“Come on, baby, _please_ let go of Kuroo,” he’d pleaded.

“Look--just take my sweater. I can take if off and she won’t have to let go of it, right?” Kuroo had said finally, exhaling sharply. “If it’ll make her _stop crying_ , I can live without it for a few days.”

Before Oikawa could tell him yes or no, Kuroo had shucked the sweater right off, managing to remove it without jostling Hatsue’s arm enough to start up another round of tears. Clad in just a t-shirt in the winter cold, he had then tucked the sweater right around Hatsue.

“There. Problem solved,” Kuroo had stated, eyeing Oikawa’s daughter warily to see if she’d cry.

There was a moment of anticipation and of bated breath as they all looked at Hatsue. Her eyebrows had twisted, and her eyes flickered from Kuroo's face to the sweater in her hands. And instead of bawling again, she’d buried her face into the sweater and immediately fell asleep, having tired herself out so completely by throwing a tantrum.

They’d all breathed out sighs of relief.

“She’s never become so attached to someone before,” Oikawa had murmured softly, looking troubled as he stared down at Hatsue’s still damp face. He wiped the liquid away before it could get too chilled in the winter air. “I hope she won’t start crying again once we’re home.”

“Aren’t kids at this age still unable to grasp the concept of things existing beyond their own sight?” Hanamaki then asked tiredly. “She probably won’t even remember who Kuroo is once we’re home.”

Kuroo had shivered suddenly, and Oikawa had promptly scolded Kuroo for staying outside with them in the cold.

“Go back in--we can see ourselves off now. I’m sorry that she was a bother,” Oikawa had apologised, a sheepish look on his face when he realised just how much they’d inconvenienced his coworker. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

Kuroo’d reached out then, brushing his fingers through Oikawa’s hair. “It wasn’t a bother. It was a pleasure to meet everyone--I expect to see your Ushijima next time you visit, alright?” He’d teased.

“Right. As if I’d do that when you’re still not going back in, Kuroo-chan!” Oikawa had then physically pushed Kuroo back into his home, grumbling and complaining about Kuroo’s idiotic stubbornness and how he would catch a cold if he continued to stay out.

Hanamaki had sent Oikawa a wry grin after the front door had closed behind Kuroo, and they left Kuroo’s house, bundled up and warm, armed with exhausted children.

All in all, Oikawa considered the visit to Kuroo’s home relatively successful.

* * *

When they got home, Hatsue had regained enough energy enough to stay awake and be fed.

Throughout it all, she’d kept her little fists tight around the brightly coloured fabric. Even when they put her to bed hours later, she refused to let go of it and used the sweater in lieu of her usual plush toy as her sleeping aid and security blanket.

When he'd returned from work, Ushijima had seemed fairly confused by the sight of the new object and hadn't recognised the scent on it at all. He'd reached in to take the sweater from her crib, probably in the hopes of washing it, and had to be told by Oikawa and Hanamaki alike to let her keep it with her in the crib.

Hanamaki didn’t want to deal with her incessant crying again.

Oikawa just didn’t want to see her so upset. Seeing her inconsolable sadness hurt him just as much as it hurt her.

"It's Kuroo-chan's sweater," Oikawa remarked.

Ushijima's eyebrows furrowed. "Why does she have it?"

Hanamaki smiled then, wry and full of humour. "She stole it off of Kuroo's back. She didn't allow him to have it back."

“It’s like she thinks Kuroo-chan’s her mother now,” Oikawa stated with a tired sigh. “She’s never taken to anyone so quickly. To be honest, I don’t think he ever wants her over again after today. She was crying so hard and being a nuisance to him.”

“Maybe but…” Hanamaki laughed suddenly. “I mean, he’s put up with you so far, right? I don’t think your kids could be any worse than you, Oikawa.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes at that.

* * *

Barely a day after Oikawa had visited Kuroo at his home, Oikawa found his phone inundated with a variety of texts from Kuroo.

They were melodramatic texts, filled with melodramatic phrases about how lost and lonely Kuroo felt now that the shining light in his life had left him, all alone to rot in his little home so far away from the heart of everything. The song of his life was missing, and Kuroo was dancing alone to silence without his little Hatsue, and how could Oikawa be so cruel as to separate him from the very thing that gave his life meaning?

They were texts that really lost their melodrama considering he’d _watched_ Kuroo type them out onto his phone right next to Oikawa with a contemplative look on his face, occasionally asking Oikawa the best ways to phrase things.

“Do you think it sounds better if I call Hatsue the little songbird upon my shoulder? Or if I call her the thieving raccoon that still hadn’t returned my sweater? I’ve been freezing at home without anything to wear,” Kuroo remarked.

Oikawa rolled his eyes, shoving his phone back into his pocket. "Good. I'm glad you're freezing, Kuroo-chan."

He ignored Kuroo’s melodramatic gasp about how cold Oikawa was ( _pun, of course, fully intended_ , he was sure to mention), and he pushed away from their lab bench, walking out of the lab and towards the office portion of their workplace.

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa called out, walking over to Iwaizumi’s cordoned-off section of the office and knocking on the cubicle wall. “ _Iwa-chan_. Can you do something about Kuroo?” He called out, peering over the low-rise wall with an exaggerated pout on his face. “He’s bullying me!”

“No -chan?” Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow when he looked up. “What did Kuroo do this time to warrant you dropping the suffix?” He asked, standing up with a long-suffering groan.

He gestured for Oikawa to follow him as they made their way back to the laboratory.

“He told me that I look like a beaten-in aluminium can and that I’m about as smart as one,” Oikawa quickly made up, keeping a straight face as he continued. “He said my children look like bricks. Like half-baked potatoes covered in plastic cheese. He also made me clean up his bench for him, and made me fetch him coffee twelve times today already, and he’s--”

“Ready to press charges against you for false allegations,” Kuroo drawled, peeking out of the lab with a grin on his face. “Oikawa, if you’re going to lie, you should really try to be convincing about it.”

“I’m trying to get Iwa-chan to feel sympathetic towards me so that he’ll look the other way when I finally manage to sneak arsenic into your coffee,” Oikawa retorted.

“Well, _Iwa-chan_ is a good enough detective that he’s going to find all the evidence that you leave behind and he’s moral enough to make sure that you get convicted for committing a crime that you’ve announced you’ll commit,” Kuroo shot back, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Oikawa sniffed, tilting his chin up arrogantly. “Yeah, but Iwa-chan likes me a lot more than he likes you--besides, who could ever want to convict someone as handsome as me? When people look at Kuroo-chan, all they see is someone who they want to punch in the mouth!”

Iwaizumi let out a strange sound akin to a dying bird, and they both turned to look at him.

“Are you two _children_?” Iwaizumi asked in what could have been a long-suffering voice, though it was muffled by a large hand.

Iwaizumi had apparently raised his hand to cover his face, but it wasn’t enough to stop either Oikawa or Kuroo from seeing it: he had the strangest glint in his eye, cheeks and ears alike visibly pink since his hand wasn’t large enough to cover them.

“Was that a _laugh_ ?” Kuroo asked in confusion, his own lips turning into a grin as Iwaizumi turned a dark red. He’d hit the nail on the head. “Holy shit. That _was_ a laugh.”

Oikawa burst into peals of laughter. “Iwa-chan, you look adorable!” He teased, reaching out to grab Iwaizumi’s wrist, trying to tug that hand away from his face. “I’ve never seen you blush like that before!”

He managed to push Iwaizumi’s hand away enough to reveal his face. Iwaizumi’s lips had been parted into the most awkward smile Oikawa had ever seen on anyone’s face ever: a grin forcibly attempted to look like a grimace, and it made Oikawa burst into even more laughter.

“Shut the fuck up, Shittykawa!” Iwaizumi attempted to roar, but his voice cracked. There was a fragile moment in which Kuroo and Oikawa glanced at each other, lips twitching. “Don’t you _fucking dare laugh_ , you shitty _rooster_ \--!”

 _That_ made Kuroo crack up, too mirthful to be anywhere near as intimidated as Iwaizumi wanted him to be.

“Your voice-- _cracked_ ,” Kuroo gasped out, laughing so hard he snorted. “Face-- _so red!_ ”

“I _hate_ you two.” Iwaizumi hissed, his face and neck completely red in embarrassment.

Oikawa giggled as he pressed his shoulder against Iwaizumi’s, peering down at Iwaizumi with bright eyes. “No you don’t, Iwa-chan! You love us.”

Iwaizumi snorted, crossing his arms and looking away. “No I fucking don’t.”

But Iwaizumi didn't move away, and they were pressed side to side, and Oikawa was fairly certain that Iwaizumi had a great amount of affection for both Oikawa and Kuroo within him. Somewhere. Probably tucked deep, deep down in the very pits of his heart.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to reiterate that relationship progression in this fic will be EXCEEDINGLY slow because that's just how I've always seen Oikawa as a person to be: quick to become friends, but slow to become _close_ to others. Ushijima had been an exception to this rule.

Oikawa had been working as a trainee analyst at the forensics lab for a just over month when Kuroo had finally given Oikawa permission to work with the samples that came in from the police department.

He was still required to have a supervisor overseeing his actions, but Oikawa was  _ finally _ allowed to work with the samples rather than handle all of the paperwork that the lab technicians seemed to revile.

Oikawa could understand the sentiment, after having filled out sheet after sheet of forms concerning the personnel who’d even remotely  _ breathed _ near certain samples. Working out where the sample had been, and with whom, took hours at times.

He’d celebrated his unofficial promotion by demanding Iwaizumi buy him a heated can of red bean soup from the nearest conbini the next time he left their labs, to which Iwaizumi had promptly refused.

Oikawa had pouted furiously as Iwaizumi left to head towards a crime scene right after he denied Oikawa, prompting one of the junior technicians (who, despite her position’s title, was almost fifteen years older than Oikawa) to joke that Oikawa looked like a baby who just had their pacifier stolen from their mouth.

Oikawa hadn’t been amused at all at the comparison.

Kuroo then took that opportunity to coo over Oikawa in a mockery of how he’d do with his own children, and Oikawa promptly forgot about Iwaizumi’s utterly selfish, self-serviant, self… hm,  _ self-centred _ behaviour in not getting Oikawa his rightful reward.

Regardless, it was strange to not have Kuroo hovering over his shoulder every moment of the day, but Oikawa took the new freedom for what it was: a reward for having made it through Kuroo’s surprisingly strict tutelage.

(Though it wasn’t so much of a reward when he found that his coworkers still dumped their paperwork on him because he was the youngest person within the lab and therefore their gofer, but he bore it with as much grace as he could. He promised that it wouldn’t be long before he eventually rose in position to become the chief analyst, and he was going to get back at everyone by delegating  _ judiciously _ .)

* * *

“Ne, Iwa-chan, can you pass me the buffer solution? It’s right by your elbow over there.”

“Uh… is it this one?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Oikawa took hold of the glass jar, uncapping it deftly and carefully pouring some of it into the device he’d been setting up on the lab counter for the past ten minutes.

“What are you doing right now?” Iwaizumi asked, tilting his head to the side. “Are you testing something for drugs?”

“Nope. We’re trying to confirm if this is human blood,” Oikawa replied, gesturing at a small sample of diluted blood that Kuroo had handed to him just that morning.

He picked up the small vial, popping it open all the while deftly handling using one of the hundreds of micropipettes Kuroo insisted on leaving around the lab. He could feel Iwaizumi’s eyes on him as he carefully squeezed a few microlitres of the sample into its well and tried not to let that get to him.

Oikawa’s hand shook only minutely, and he took that as the small victory that it was. Iwaizumi couldn’t unnerve him anymore than his professors back at college!

Iwaizumi watched him as he removed the tip from the tube, thumbing the micropipette in satisfaction to ejecting the plastic tip into a plastic wastebin to be thrown out.

Oikawa capped the tube, shaking it lightly to mix its contents just because he could (and because Kuroo wasn’t hovering over his shoulder like some demented scarecrow to tell him he was going to shear the red blood cells if he wasn’t careful) before setting it to the side. He then took hold of the micropipette again, ready to pull out a small amount of various other solutions to squeeze onto the electrophoretic plate.

As he did so, Iwaizumi pulled out one of the bench stools to sit down upon.

“Your look of concentration looks constipated.” Iwaizumi mentioned a moment later, sounding amused.

“No it doesn’t!” Oikawa denied immediately, careful to modulate his voice so that the force of his affronted sounds didn’t affect his hands. “I always look good! You just don’t have good enough eyes to see just how good looking I am, Iwa-chan.”

The pipette tip nearly sliced through the delicate polyacrylamide gel when Iwaizumi spoke again.

“I was going to say that it looked better on you than your usual dopey smile, but I guess I won’t now,” Iwaizumi remarked wryly, and Oikawa glanced up to send him a narrow-eyed stare.

Even with their short acquaintanceship, Oikawa was attuned enough to Iwaizumi’s gruffness to know that it was rare for him to give out compliments. As half-hidden behind an insult as it was.

“What do you want?” Oikawa asked almost suspiciously. He set down the pipette before he could damage the equipment by accident. “Are you calling me that because you want me to make you lunch as well or something?”

A week ago, Oikawa had taken it upon himself to make Tendou a boxed lunch just  _ once _ since Tendou had mentioned that there weren’t any good tonkatsu restaurants within the vicinity of their workplace.

Since then, Kuroo had taken it upon himself to incessantly bother Oikawa into making him lunch as well until he finally gave in the other day and made Kuroo a bento of his favourite foods: grilled salted mackerel over rice.

Oikawa had taken the extra effort to overcook the fish until it was tough and dry, then garnish the rice with nori and sesame seeds to spell out the words:  _ I hope you choke _ with a little pickled plum heart next to the words. Kuroo had proudly taken photos of it and shown it off to all of their colleagues--much to Oikawa’s (albeit grudgingly fond) irritation.

“I don’t want anything. In fact, I have something for  _ you  _ instead. Here you go.”

Iwaizumi pulled a can of red bean soup out of his pocket and set it onto the counter next to Oikawa.

Oikawa stared at it with wide eyes.

“Didn’t you want it? I forgot I bought it the other day and didn’t give it to you, so it’s cold.” Iwaizumi stated.

Oikawa peeled his latex gloves off, and sent Iwaizumi a wide, beaming smile. “Iwa-chan, you’re the best! I  _ knew _ you’d get it for me!” He cheered, grabbing the can and popping it open. “You’re better than Kuroo! He doesn’t even  _ bother _ getting me things. Thank you Iwa-chan!”

He raised the can to his lips, and every drop of it tasted utterly like thick, lukewarm success.

Iwaizumi snorted and pet Oikawa’s hair as if he were a kid.

Oikawa grinned at Iwaizumi around the lip of the can.

* * *

That day, when it came time to clock out, Tendou had approached Oikawa at his counter in the midst of cleaning up and eyed the empty can of red bean soup.

It had been cleaned and dried, then carefully placed on the corner by the piles of paperwork Oikawa had only just organised.

“Do you want me to throw that out for you, Tooru?” Tendou asked.

“No!” Oikawa immediately exclaimed, eyes wide. “That’s my _ trophy _ . I’m going to keep it on my desk forever and get it a proper stand and everything.”

Tendou had looked bemused, before a look of realisation crossed his features.

A grin appeared on his face.

“Oh? Hajime actually got you the drink? I thought he told you he’d rather buy dog shit than buy you a drink!” Tendou exclaimed loudly.

“What can I say?” Oikawa replied cheerfully. “I’m irresistible. Not even Iwa-chan can refuse me when I ask him to get me things.”

He then promptly yelped as a bottle cap hit him squarely on the forehead, courtesy of a frowning Iwaizumi who apparently didn’t appreciate Oikawa and Tendou talking behind his back.

“I  _ can _ refuse you. I refuse to listen to your bullshit, Oikawa!” Iwaizumi had exclaimed gruffly, even as Oikawa rubbed at his forehead with a pout that could rival Ryuuko’s.

“Iwa-chan’s the worst! Iwa-chan’s the absolute worst,” Oikawa complained loudly. “I take back everything I said about him being better than Kuroo.  _ Tendou _ is the best, not either of you!”

Tendou snickered at the reddened circle mark that had been left on his forehead, and Oikawa complained about Iwaizumi and Kuroo to Tendou and Iwaizumi all the way to the train station, at which point he bid farewell to his coworkers.

They took opposing lines, Oikawa taking the inbound train, while Tendou and Iwaizumi took the outbound train.

He thought it would be interesting to commute with Tendou and Iwaizumi, considering how Tendou wasn’t a morning person at all while Iwaizumi took five-in-the-morning jogs according to Kuroo, but he could only speculate at how he’d fit into the dichotomy between them.

His train home arrived at the station, and as he got on, he’d noticed Iwaizumi watching him across from the other platform.

Oikawa waved at him briefly as the train took motion again and left Iwaizumi’s response lost to the blur of velocity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've made everyone's ages clear. At this point, it's late November and everyone's ages are currently:  
> 9 months - Hatsue + Ryuuko (born in February)  
> 22 - Hanamaki + Oikawa  
> 28 - Ushijima + Kuroo  
> 30 - Tendou  
> 31 - Iwaizumi  
> 45 - Akaashi


	13. Chapter 13

Crimes seemed to pick up during the winter months. The nights were longer, and the added hours of darkness gave the impression that it would be easier to get away with crime.

Everyone at the lab seemed to be tenser than ever, stressed and overworked due to the sheer amount of work they had to do processing all of the samples that came in. Oikawa found himself working overtime most days, helping Kuroo analyse the samples that came in, trying to push them all through efficiently in time to receive the next bunch of evidence that came in.

Iwaizumi was rarely in the office, directing crime scene investigators in evidence collection from various locations. He always returned at the very end of the day, shivering and nearly blue from the cold.

Even Tendou had seemed in a rare mood of pique as he paced the entire length of their office, every move of his hand a gesture of uncharacteristic frustration as he argued and debated with Akaashi about various things. Akaashi stoically bore the raised tensions of the lab personnel with the air of a veteran.

Lunch breaks had never felt shorter, and workdays had never felt longer.

“It’s pretty unfortunate that you managed to pass my high standards and progressed into working with actual samples,” Kuroo mentioned with a grin in the midst of a maze of vials supposedly filled with blood, saliva and other bodily fluids. “Think about how free you would’ve been and the excuses you’d have had to _not_ work.”

“This is all your fault then, Kuroo-chan,” Oikawa said snootily, wearing his glasses for once due to the strain that his eyes were feeling pulling longer hours at work. “It’s Kuroo-chan’s fault that I’m labouring like a slave.”

He held up a vial that was labelled to contain hair and squinted at it suspiciously.

He couldn’t see anything, but his vision was pretty blurry. He had to pull his glasses off and rub at his eyes, trying to get them to work again. When it replaced his glasses, he finally managed to see the extremely fine strand of hair, almost white in colour.

Had it been dropped by an elderly person? Was it dyed? Perhaps it was an animal’s?

“I blame Kuroo-chan entirely for my lowered life satisfaction,” Oikawa added when Kuroo didn’t respond for a few minutes. "I hope Kuroo-chan realises that he's single-handedly raised my risk of developing some form of grudging hatred for my job."

Kuroo let out a few distracted sounds of agreement, face plastered to the eyepiece of a light microscope and deaf to the world around him.

Oikawa let out a soft huff of amusement before returning to process the hair and hopefully isolate the fragments of DNA that could be found at the root of the hair.

* * *

It took them hours and hours, accidentally working into their lunch break at one point, but Kuroo and Oikawa had finally finished working through all of the available samples assigned to their portion of the lab, and had celebrated rather noisily--much to the envy of their coworkers.

Of course, they still had work to do, but for the twenty minutes that they had to wait sitting around in front of the PCR cycler for the DNA samples to come out, they were _free_.

The feeling of his coworker’s dirty stares had boosted Oikawa’s smugness to record-high levels, and Kuroo had been similarly affected. They exchange wide, toothy grins, and busied themselves with being _obnoxious_ in their success.

They busied themselves with cleaning up their respective benches, glass jars and lab equipment clinking merrily against the ceramic surface over the sounds of the lab’s background noises of grumbled complaints and humming machines.

Oikawa pulled out a stool for both Kuroo and himself, ignoring how the legs of the stools clashed with loud metallic ringing. (Sasagawa, stationed on the opposite side to Oikawa, sent him a glower that he easily ignored.)

“I bet Iwa-chan’s really cold outside,” Oikawa remarked offhandedly, grinning. “Sitting around in the cold, freezing his ears off. Iwa-chan’s always so smug about being allowed outside, but _we_ get to stay inside where it’s warm. So the joke's on him!”

“The perks of an office job,” Kuroo added with a sagely nod. “But there’s a reason why Iwaizumi gets paid more than we do.”

“But is it _worth it_ ?” Oikawa asked with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t think staying out where it’s cold is worth it at all. What if you get _hypothermia_? Is an increase in your salary really worth losing your fingers?”

Kuroo let out a laugh.

“Criminals really don’t have any decency, huh?” Kuroo joked. “They make hardworking men like Iwaizumi go out into the cold, risking their fingers to dispense justice and win some bread to take back home. Couldn’t they do this during the summer? Preferably at a beach where people like Iwaizumi can work up a healthy tan?”

Oikawa thought for a moment.

“We should start up a club promoting Iwa-chan’s right to stay warm during the winter months,” he remarked a moment later. “I’m sure we could find people to fund us. We could start up a whole campaign to dissuade criminals from committing crimes during the winter too.”

Kuroo sent Oikawa a grin and reached out to rest his palm against the back of Oikawa’s neck. He rubbed the side of Oikawa’s neck with a thumb.

“I’m sure we could.” Kuroo agreed. “We absolutely can do that.”

* * *

Talk of Iwaizumi’s hypothetical human-rights club had eventually led to Oikawa complaining about the lack of drinks within the breakroom, and seemingly in a unanimous manner, his coworkers had chosen him to rectify that issue.

He found himself inundated with fistfuls of coins and a long list of snacks and drinks that they wanted. Oikawa had to scramble to not drop all of the money they threw at him.

Even Akaashi had joined in, leaving Tendou’s office long enough to place a company credit card into his hand with a solemn, “If you lose this or misuse it, I’m docking your pay for the next three months” and, “I want some curry-pan, three chocolate bars and a pack of cigarettes. Thanks, Oikawa”.

And as such, Oikawa had braved the cold outside to visit the nearest conbini with his pockets laden with heavy coins, while Kuroo tended to the PCR machine in the delicious warmth of the lab. Luckily enough, there was a conbini just a few streets away, its sign bright and cheerful against the backdrop of miserable winter weather.

Huddled in his thick down jacket, hands stinking like rubbing alcohol and the bitter-sweet smells of the various chemicals they used, Oikawa rushed towards and into the convenience store.

It didn’t take him long to reach the store, and he quickly entered in the hopes of escaping the cold.

He’d forgotten one fundamental rule about conbini stores however. They had their air-conditioning on all year around. Oikawa found himself freezing regardless inside, and he didn't bother to unzip his jacket since there was no added warmth within the store. It was barely a few degrees above the outside, just enough that the convenience store workers didn't have to wear their overcoats within the store.

He sent pitying glances at the store attendant as he passed them by, but pushed them out of his mind once they were out of sight. He soon had a shopping basket filled to the brim with snacks and drinks and other vices that his coworkers saw fit to order.

Akaashi’s strange request for curry-buns with chocolate bars, Kuroo’s request for dried squid strips, Tendou’s gum and soda, various other drinks ranging from electrolyte sports drinks to coffee to lactobacillus yoghurt, they all fell into the shopping basket as he located each item.

He even made sure to fulfill Sasagawa’s joking request for condoms, grabbing the smallest size that he could find and determined to make a joke about how he wasn’t sure if Sasagawa would be able to fill any of the rest (i.e., the larger ones).

On his way to the cashier counter, Oikawa hesitated when he passed by the heated drinks section that had been set up where the newspapers would usually go.

Soup, coffee, hot chocolate, soy milk drinks... It didn’t take him long to make the decision of reaching out to snatch up a few cans of red bean soup even though no one had asked for it.

It’d be a nice surprise for Iwaizumi when he ever got back to the lab, at least.

He went to the cashier counter with a grin on his face and dumped the mass of coins in his pockets onto the counter. He'd never seen anyone's face turn quite as murderous as the store attendant's when they had to take their gloves off to count the coins.


	14. Chapter 14

When Oikawa returned home from work one day in mid-December, he found himself confronted with a rather strange sight.

“... Ushiwaka-chan, is there a reason why you’re in my closet right now?” Oikawa asked, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the large nurse rummaging through his clothing.

Ushijima barely spared him a glance over his shoulder. “Looking for a scarf,” he said belatedly, gingerly picking up one of Oikawa’s pants and setting it to the side.

Oikawa blinked. “Aren’t you already wearing one?” He pointed out.

There was a large purple scarf wound around Ushijima’s neck thrice, keeping him snug and warm.

“It doesn’t smell like you,” Ushijima replied absently. “I found it easier to manage the peaks of my estrous cycles when I have objects that smell like my packmates.”

Oikawa frowned.

“Ah.” Ushijima straightened up. “I forgot to mention that too, didn’t I? I’ve only recently found that they pass by quicker when my rooms smell like my pack..” He seemed embarrassed, shifting from foot to foot.

“I don’t mind you taking my scarf,” Oikawa said belatedly, somewhat uncomfortable at the thought of Ushijima’s heat cycles. His estrous cycles.

He’d actually forgotten that omegas had cycles much like alphas did.

Unlike alphas, who became far more competitive during certain times of the year, omegas… apparently went into isolation? It wasn’t necessarily sexual, from what he could remember, but they required a private space to spend their time.

Oikawa hadn’t paid much attention during sex education back at high school, having been far too preoccupied with his girlfriend at that time who’d been a fellow alpha.

“Are you taking something of Hanamaki’s too?” He then asked, walking forward and nudging Ushijima out of his closet to take over the search. Within moments, he located one of his more favoured scarves.

Ushijima nodded, looking far less discomfited when Oikawa didn’t seem angry.

He gestured at a plastic bag on the floor that Oikawa had missed.

“He lent me one of his jackets. I already took some of Hatsue and Ryuuko’s less-used toys back to my apartment,” Ushijima detailed.

Oikawa passed the scarf to Ushijima, watching as he packed the scarf away neatly into the plastic bag.

“So…” Oikawa trailed off awkwardly. “When does it start?”

Ushijima’s lips twitched, looking amused at how their positions had changed: Oikawa was now the one to shift awkwardly on his feet in front of Ushijima. “It already has started. This is solely for my personal benefit. I find it much easier to sleep when I stay over here, and therefore wanted to… get this cycle over and done with.”

Oikawa’s eyebrows rose. “I… did not know that, Ushiwaka-chan,” he said stiltedly.

He’d never noticed that Ushijima had been managing his way through his cycles. It then occurred to him exactly what he’d missed: every two months, Ushijima would keep his visits solely to the day-time for a week or so, before resuming his nightly stays at his and Hanamaki’s apartment.

Ushijima was smiling outright now. “You know now.” He pointed out. “I’ll take my leave then. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Oikawa nodded, following Ushijima towards the front door.

Watching Ushijima put his overcoat on, then his shoes, Oikawa waved an idle goodbye to his packmate as he left. “See you, Ushiwaka-chan!” He called out cheerfully, before he locked the front door.

He stood there idly for a moment.

Then he turned and walked towards the kitchen, intent on scrubbing his mind clean with several glasses of wine and two perfectly toasted milk buns filled with a thick slab of butter.

Estrous cycles and omegas--those were things that he really shouldn’t be allowing himself to think about, especially when it was about his packmate of all people.

* * *

The next day was surprisingly uneventful.

Boring, even, which surprised Oikawa, who had gotten used to the business of the winter season.

They only had enough work to keep them mildly entertained in the lab, and the analysts soon spread out through the office to chat and occasionally bug Akaashi for any updates from the police station as the amount of samples needed processing diminished.

Tendou had finally gotten enough time to work through all of the paperwork he’d been given, and was no longer prone to snapping at people for disturbing him, even if he kept his office door locked up tight and could be spied through the door window crouched over a stack of paper with a bright red pen.

Even Iwaizumi was finally back in his cubicle, no longer bundled up in a large parka or ridiculously thick clothing to go out on excursions through wintery crime scenes.

Oikawa had been chased out of the lab by Kuroo, who had decided he wanted to be the sole personnel working on the samples given, and as such, made the decision to bother Iwaizumi--who obviously didn’t have any work to do.

Iwaizumi had only just settled into his chair when Oikawa commandeered Iwaizumi's desk, perching himself upon the wooden surface as if it were his throne.

Their conversation had initially started off about dogs: Oikawa had been curious about Iwaizumi’s border collie, and had learnt that his name was Gojira and that he had a penchant for biting the shoelaces off of all of Iwaizumi’s shoes when he managed to get into Iwaizumi’s shoe closet.

He found out that Gojira was six years old, and that Iwaizumi had adopted him from a pet shelter he’d been volunteering at a few years ago, and that Iwaizumi also had a variety of lizards and reptiles that he kept at home. He was particularly fond of his bearded dragon, who he’d affectionately called Mothra because of a birth defect causing pigmentation in its scales to look like the pattern of a moth’s wing.

Eventually, they began to talk about Iwaizumi’s wardrobe (and Oikawa _despaired_ at the lack of variety Iwaizumi showed), then about his lack of opportunity to go shopping (though Iwaizumi would insist that it wasn’t that he didn’t have time, he just _didn’t want to go_ ), then about the holiday season that they were steadily approaching.

“What do you have planned for Christmas?” Oikawa asked Iwaizumi nonchalantly. “Are you going to be meeting up with your family?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “I don’t have the time to head down to Sendai and return in time for work the next day. I’ll be spending it at home with Gojira,” he explained.

“Oh? So we don’t get Christmas off?” Oikawa asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Nope. We _do_ get to head home early on the 25th, though, and for New Year’s too. We get to have staggered leaves of absence once the holiday season’s gone by properly, before all of us are back in time for the lunar new year,” Iwaizumi explained absently, sipping at the can of caramel coffee that someone (probably Tendou, considering he knew Iwaizumi hated sweetened coffee) had left on his desk with a grimace. “Crime doesn’t wait for holidays, and Christmas has always been one of our busier seasons.”

Oikawa hummed, looking relatively upset.

He’d been looking forward to spending the day with his family, celebrating Hatsue and Ryuuko’s first Christmas with Hanamaki and Ushijima--both of whom had managed to secure vacations for that week. Oikawa would be the only one to have work that day.

Iwaizumi glanced up. “It’s always possible to celebrate Christmas even after the date’s gone past. It’s a commercial holiday after all.”

“It’s just--I’m being selfish. I want to be able to spend my first Christmas with a full pack.” Oikawa said a moment later, sighing softly. “It’s always just been Makki and I, so it’s a novel experience having _more_ than just him. You know?”

Iwaizumi shrugged. “You’ll get to do that once you’re done with work.”

Oikawa hummed. “I know I will. I’m just being whiny at this point,” he added with a soft, self-depreciative laugh.

“It’s alright to be upset. Family is important.” Iwaizumi responded. “Just don’t be annoying about how upset you are, Oikawa.” He had a small smile on his lips to soften the harshness of his words, and Iwaizumi even reached up to ruffle Oikawa’s _perfectly coiffed_ hair in an uncharacteristic show of niceness.

As nice as it was to have friendly contact with someone else, the whole petting thing was actually another point of contention Oikawa had been nursing for a while.

“Stop treating me like I’m a dog or a kid, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa complained, reaching up to immediately fix his hair back into place. “I’m a fully grown man and I don’t deserve to be treated this way.”

Iwaizumi’s smile turned into a smirk, and he ruffled Oikawa’s hair again--this time adding enough pressure that he permanently distorted the gel Oikawa had used. “You’re as eager to please as one though, Oikawa. I can’t help but pet you when you’re being such a good boy.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes, and he quickly grabbed the mirror Iwaizumi kept on his desk (for some strange reason), using it to fix his hair back up as best as he could.

“Iwa-chan is the absolute worst.” He grumbled. “Constantly bullying me with Kuroo-chan. Tendou’s the only one who’s nice, out of everyone here!”

“Yeah, sure. That’s why you’re sitting on my desk, using my mirror and placing your feet onto my chair’s arm.”

Iwaizumi pushed Oikawa’s shoe off of his chair after he spoke, making Oikawa wobble precariously on his perch upon Iwaizumi’s desk.

“I’m going to complain to Akaashi that you’re harassing me and that I demand that you be demoted so that I can take your job,” Oikawa announced, once he’d managed to stabilise himself by grabbing the edge of Iwaizumi’s desk.

“Sure, sure. I look forward to seeing the complaint forms, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi responded in clear amusement, before turning to face his computer screen with a faint smile.

“Just for that, I’m _never_ going to let you come over and meet my kids,” Oikawa threatened, hopping off of the desk to return to the labs. He grabbed the half-empty can of coffee off of Iwaizumi’s desk, drinking the rest of it quickly so that Iwaizumi couldn’t drink any more of it. “I hope you realise just what a blessing you’ve just spurned, Iwa-chan!”

Iwaizumi’s chuckle followed him as he left, and Oikawa found himself grinning to himself for no particular reason.

He tossed the can into the nearest recycling bin.

* * *

The days slipped by quickly. Hatsue and Ryuuko were finally able to eat relatively solid foods without encouragement, and seemed pleased at having tougher foods to gnaw on. They still primarily drank baby formula, but with the full emergence of their front few teeth, Ushijima had mentioned that it would be best for them to get used to chewing.

Their progress had left Oikawa fascinated, and he continued to take photos of them every day, recording them and having them printed out to fill an ever-growing scrapbook filled with memories of him and his children.

It never failed to make him smile whenever he saw his packmates appear within the pages.

* * *

 

Christmas Day was abnormally hot for Tokyo, with temperatures almost reaching double-digits Celsius and destroying all hopes of a snowy day.

Oikawa woke up that morning feeling fairly unhappy. The time was six-thirty; he could already hear one of his children stirring in her crib in preparation for her routine early-morning wakeup call.

Quickly rolling out of bed before she could really get started with her groggy little sobs, he stumbled towards his children and found that it was Ryuuko who had awoken first. He picked Ryuuko up into his arms.

She instantly calmed in his embrace, her head fitting perfectly into the junction of his neck as he soothed her carefully with repetitive pats of her back and quiet humming.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you, Ryuu-chan?” He asked quietly, a fond smile on his face. He kissed the side of her face. “I’ll get breakfast ready for you in a bit. Do you want to say good morning to Hatsue too, Ryuu-chan?”

Going through the usual motion of feeding his children breakfast and changing their diapers, and reading them a few passages in the hopes that they’d repeat what he said, Oikawa found his negative mood chased away through interacting with his children.

Though they didn’t seem to understand anything, nevertheless connect the sounds he was making to the words he’d been pointing at in the books, Hatsue had stared at him with unnerving intensity the entire time while Ryuuko mashed the slices of banana on her plate in delight with her fists.

It was delightful to see just how much they’d grown up over the past few months.

He could barely believe that they had once been immobile and mindless, too young to have much to them beyond the instinctive need to feed.

Now they responded to their names, able to recognise Oikawa by his voice and his smell, able to recognise Hanamaki and Ushijima, and they were so _curious_ that it almost hurt Oikawa that he couldn’t explain things to them. Not when they didn’t have much of a vocabulary.

He smiled as he closed the book and set it down upon the table. “Ne, Hatsue, what are you looking at so intently?” He asked, reaching out to thumb off a piece of soggy cereal from her cheek. “Are you full already? You’ve barely eaten a spoonful.”

He was cut off by the sound of Ryuuko screeching in triumph, followed by the sound of a plate hitting the linoleum floor.

“Ryuuko!” Oikawa exclaimed promptly. Scolding her for making a mess, he had to stoop to pick the mess up off of the floor. Ryuuko didn’t seem to understand his scolding, and instead banged her hands merrily against her tray, squealing in delight.

Hanamaki had been blissfully asleep in his own room, while Ushijima slept peacefully upon the couch. He wasn’t so sure that the latter was still asleep after the series of loud noises coming from Ryuuko.

When he glanced out of the kitchen, he found that Ushijima was indeed awake, and blinking blearily over at the kitchen. Ushijima stood up and walked towards him, rubbing at his eyes with an audible yawn.

“It’s seven-twenty.” Ushijima announced when he entered the kitchen. He noticed the mashed yellow stain on the floor that had formerly been Ryuuko’s breakfast. “You should’ve woken me up. You have to head to work, right?”

Oikawa nodded, and had regretfully left Ushijima to clean up after Ryuuko’s mess. He really didn’t have much time left; he had to leave to get to the labs in time for the start of their day.

Kissing his daughters goodbye, he reached out and touched Ushijima’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Ushiwaka. Sorry that you have to do this the moment you woke up--and that I have to go instead of clean up,” he added with an unhappy twist to his lips. “I would’ve done it but--”

Ushijima shook his head. “You have work. We’ll see you later today. The trains are going to be crowded when work ends today, so we’ll expect you to be a little late.”

Oikawa nodded and promptly pressed his cheek against Ushijima’s, then grabbed his coat and rushed out of the apartment.

He could hear Ushijima’s faint calls to have a good day at work behind him, and it left him grinning widely all the way to work. Any unhappiness of having woken that day had been chased away fully.


	15. Chapter 15

The day was spent productively.

From morning until lunch-time, then the afternoon to the early evening, Oikawa was put to work separating the various sample vials they’d received into the dates they received them, the results they’d gathered from each sample, and the confirmatory tests that they’d done to ensure that the test results were as accurate and reliable as possible.

It was hard to keep track of the various tests that they’d done, and Oikawa found himself having to triple-check what he was reading just in case he’d read something wrong.

Kanji looked almost meaningless with how often he had to read certain words, and Oikawa had had to take so many breaks it left him almost paranoid that he was running out of time to process everything.

He’d only found out from Tendou that some of the samples were going to be used as court evidence the following day, and as a result, they needed to make sure all of their documentation was legible and beyond fault.

In the few times he could drag his mind away from the heaps of work he had to do, Oikawa found himself staring wistfully out of the office windows, wondering how Hanamaki and Ushijima were doing back at home, and whether Hatsue and Ryuuko had been fed yet.

He spend the majority of his day working with one of the senior analysts performing a quadruple-check on the paperwork he filled out, and by the end of their workday, he was utterly wiped out.

Kuroo ruffled his hair, grinning despite the exhaustion that lingered in the dark circles beneath dark coloured eyes. “Tendou and I are going to go out drinking tonight with some of the others. Are you spending the rest of the day with your pack?” He asked.

Oikawa nodded, stifling a yawn as he signed out of work. “It’s bad enough that I had to come into work today,” he complained. “I don’t want to spend any more time away from Hatsue and Ryuuko.”

Kuroo nodded and gave Oikawa a pat on his back. “See you tomorrow then, Oikawa!” He exclaimed fondly, before he grabbed Tendou and dragged him off.

Oikawa found himself standing beside Iwaizumi, who held out Oikawa’s jacket for him.

Oikawa took the jacket from Iwaizumi, pulling it on with a quiet word of thanks.

“Time to head home,” Iwaizumi said with a faint smile. He looked satisfied. “Looking forward to it, Oikawa?”

Oikawa nodded. He then paused. “Iwa-chan.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to spend Christmas with me?” Oikawa asked before he could change his mind. He shifted on his feet. “It’s just--it’s Christmas. You shouldn’t be spending it alone, even if it’s with your dog, and it’s not like my pack would mind. They know that, you know, Iwa-chan and I are friends and--”

“Are dogs allowed at your apartment?”

Oikawa blinked owlishly at Iwaizumi.

“I said, are dogs allowed at your apartment?” Iwaizumi repeated patiently, looking amused at Oikawa’s startled expression. “I was thinking that I could bring Gojira over. My other animals can be left overnight, since I’ve fed them today, but Gojira really shouldn’t be left alone for that long. He gets anxious.”

Oikawa bit his lip, before nodding. “It’s a pet-friendly complex. I’ll call Makki just to make sure.”

He pulled his phone out when Iwaizumi gestured for him to go ahead, and he dialed Hanamaki’s number. When Hanamaki picked up, he could hear the sounds of his children crying in the background, and Hanamaki’s relatively panicked voice.

Shot through with worry, he was about to apologise to Iwaizumi and rush straight for home to return to his children, when Hanamaki quickly reassured him that Hatsue had started crying after Ushijima tried to take Kuroo’s sweater to wash it, and Ryuuko had started crying because Hatsue was crying.

Reassured that it wasn’t serious, Oikawa quickly recounted his offer to Iwaizumi so that his pack wouldn’t be surprised by Iwaizumi’s sudden appearance. Then he asked Hanamaki about the status of pets at their apartment complex.

Hanamaki confirmed that they were allowed on the premises, and that Ryuuko and Hatsue were being inconsolable, so could he _please_ hurry up and return home? Thanks, Oikawa.

Oikawa turned the call off, nodding over at Iwaizumi. “They’re allowed for sure.”

Iwaizumi smiled. “I could hear them all the way from here. Your children are pretty loud, kind of like you,” he remarked. “Then… we’ll go over to my place first and pick Gojira up. We can head over to your place afterwards. It’ll be nice, I think.”

Oikawa sent Iwaizumi a beaming smile. “Alright! Let’s go to your place now, Iwa-chan!”

Iwaizumi clocked out, and shrugged his jacket on. “I took my motorcycle here, but we’ll be taking my car to your place since Gojira doesn’t like taking the sidecar that I have,” he explained.

“That’s fine. I don’t think I’ve seen Iwa-chan’s car before,” Oikawa then added thoughtfully.

Iwaizumi sent Oikawa a grin.

* * *

Iwaizumi was a speed-demon.

Maybe a better word was an adrenaline junkie.

Or maybe a fanatic for fast vehicles.

He should’ve guessed it after seeing the aerodynamic lines of his motorcycle, built for power, but it wasn’t until Iwaizumi drove (or was _rode_ a better word here?) them into the carpark of his apartment complex that he realised it.

Iwaizumi parked his motorcycle next to his car, Oikawa oohed and ahhed over Iwaizumi’s sleek and polished car despite not knowing much of what type it actually was, beyond the company that made it.

Ford. That was the name proudly stamped on the front of the car. He recognised that, at the very least.

The elder man looked proud as he patted the spotless paint of his car. He rattled off the name of the car (a Ford Mustang something, Oikawa managed to catch), its specs and its capabilities, but it all flew over Oikawa’s head.

Oikawa nodded regardless, trying to look like he understood.

Iwaizumi seemed to catch himself, and he coughed, looking relatively embarrassed. Oikawa could tel that by the set of his eyebrows and his clenched jaw.

“We’ll be taking this to your home,” Iwaizumi said rather redundantly. “It’s only got two seats, so you’ll have to deal with with Gojira sitting on your lap.”

That was far more relevant information to Oikawa.

“That’s fine! Unless Gojira doesn’t like me, that would be a problem then,” Oikawa added with a laugh. “Let’s hope he likes me! I mean, I don’t doubt it. No one hates me. It’s impossible to hate me!”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes, but it was a rather fond gesture. “ _I_ hate you, Oikawa.”

“No you don’t. You’re hiding a burning desire for me,” Oikawa accused instead, grinning. He followed Iwaizumi as he led them towards the elevator that led to his particular apartment building.

“Mmhm.” Iwaizumi glanced over at Oikawa. “What exactly gave it away?”

“Well…” Oikawa tried to think of something witty to say. He had to think long and hard for something that could objectively display affection for one another.

Iwaizumi’s smirk had widened as the seconds passed by, and he was outright grinning by the time the elevator arrived at the carpark floor.

“You bought me that red bean soup!” Oikawa said triumphantly, just as the doors opened. “Even though you said you weren’t going to, you bought me that soup anyway. So obviously, you’ve got an untamable desire for me, since I'm utterly irresistible.”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes again. “Someone should have checked you for delusions during your mental evaluation when you first got the job,” he muttered, though Oikawa chose to interpret that as a sign of affection.

“Iwa-chan, I love you too,” Oikawa said very seriously, snickering.

Iwaizumi let out a scoff and pushed Oikawa into the elevator. Then he slammed his thumb onto his floor’s button, and grumpily stared to the side instead of looking at Oikawa as they went up the building.

Oikawa hummed an irritatingly catchy tune to see if Iwaizumi would get more annoyed. (He did.)

Iwaizumi stomped out of the elevator when they arrived at his floor, and his anger seemed to melt out of him as he approached a door, behind which Oikawa could hear a dog excitedly bark and scratch the wood.

The dog sounded large. It sounded excited. It sounded adorable.

Iwaizumi unlocked the front door to his apartment and crouched down in the same motion, laughing as a dog jumped on him and licked his face.

Gojira was a sweet, excitable little animal and Oikawa fell in love with him at first sight.

Gojira lathed Iwaizumi with dog spit and happiness now that his owner (or maybe dad was a better word here) was home. It wasn't until Iwaizumi was properly drenched in spit that he seemed to realise Oikawa was there as well, and bounded up to Oikawa.

Oikawa knelt down in the hopes of a similar treatment, except Gojira promptly began to nose at Oikawa’s crotch.

Iwaizumi had snorted with laughter, entering his apartment as Oikawa wailed and tried to regain what dignity he had left by ushering the dog back into Iwaizumi’s home. He managed to somehow, and closed the door behind him.

Then, as Oikawa rolled around on the floor with the dog licking his face wildly, shrieking with laughter and giddiness, Iwaizumi had rolled his eyes, walking further into his extremely minimalist apartment to a side room.

Oikawa didn’t even notice that Iwaizumi had left, not until Iwaizumi came back with a plastic bag filled with two dog bowls and a small baggie of dog food.

“Come on, Gojira. Get off of the idiot,” Iwaizumi said gruffly. “It’s time for a walk.”

Gojira did as he was told, but his tail wagged from side to side, clearly ecstatic about having met Oikawa. Or maybe it was the prospect of a walk that made him even more ecstatic. He wagged his tail hard enough that his rump shook against the floor.

Gojira then let out a whine and ran to the front door, grabbing the leash that hung by the door in his jaws and rushing back to Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi tried to grab the leash, but Gojira jumped away from him, woofing giddily and sprinting back to the front door.

Oikawa cooed.

He watched as Iwaizumi wrestled his dog onto his leash, scolding the door with a good-natured voice that had the dog _somehow_ wagging his tail even harder.

The trip back to Oikawa’s home was going to be interesting.

* * *

By the time Oikawa had reached home, his face and hair were covered with dog spit despite the speed at which Iwaizumi drove.

Had he not been raising infant daughters for the past ten months, one of which had the tendency to drool all over everything she tried to touch, he would have been utterly grossed out.

Grinning as he unlocked the front door to his home, Oikawa could hear his daughters squealing from the living room.

Oikawa immediately shucked his shoes off.

Sweeping his fingers through his hair and wiping his face with his shirt, he then burst into the apartment and swept the two girls up into his arms.

“Have you two been good today?” He asked, pressing kisses all over their cheeks and listening to them giggle sweetly into his ear at his rapid-fire attack. “Oh, I think you two sounded like _terrors_ on the phone call. Ryuu-chan was crying right? Has both Ryuu-chan and Hatsu-pon been bad to Makki and Ushiwaka-chan?” He continued to ask, mock-scolding them.

Rather than respond in a calm and collected manner, Ryuuko smacked his face with a spit-covered hand, squealing. Hatsue seemed less inclined to violence, and instead let out a series of infectious giggles.

“Thanks for acknowledging I’m here, Oikawa,” Hanamaki drawled from his position on the floor.

Oikawa laughed. “Hey there Makki. I didn’t see you in favour of my two little angels.” He then glanced over his shoulder. “Ne, Iwa-chan! Come on in!”

Iwaizumi had Gojira straining on his leash. Gojira looked highly interested in Oikawa’s apartment, and only Iwaizumi’s firm grip on the leash stopped the dog from racing into every room possible.

“Nice to meet you,” Iwaizumi said carefully, nodding over at Hanamaki, who had sat up from his formerly sprawled-out position. “Sorry to intrude on your Christmas.” Iwaizumi closed the door behind him and took his shoes off with minor difficulty. He didn’t move in any further, however, keeping Gojira firmly within the entranceway.

“Nice to meet ya too, Iwa-chan. You’re forgiven for the intrusion,” Hanamaki said with a grin. Iwaizumi’s eyebrows furrowed at the nickname and Hanamaki’s idea at a joke. “Just kidding with you, Iwaizumi-san. It’s great to have you here. We’ve heard a lot about you from Oikawa. I’m Hanamaki Takahiro, but you can call me Makki. Everyone else does anyway,” he added.

“Where’s Ushiwaka-chan?” Oikawa then asked.

Hanamaki stood up with an audible groan, and he gestured out of the window. “He went out because we ran out of pudding. I think he said he was going to get us some drinks while he was out. There’s only milk and water in the fridge. Ne, Iwaizumi-san, aren’t you going to come in?”

“If you have any wet-wipes, I could clean up Gojira’s paws first so that he doesn’t get your floor all dirty,” Iwaizumi explained. “I forgot to pack them in my bag.”

“Ah--right. We have a lot of wet wipes lying around,” Oikawa said with a smile. He set his daughters back down onto the floor, watching fondly as they immediately crawled towards Hanamaki, who had opened his hands to entice them in with wiggling fingers and baby-talk.

Walking to the coffee table to grab what he’d mentioned, he then handed it over to Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi pulled two sheets out and crouched down to carefully wipe Gojira’s paws clean. “I’d let him off the leash normally, but I don’t want him to startle or hurt your girls. Mind if I explore the apartment with him first?” He asked.

“Sure. Just don’t open any drawers,” Oikawa said in amusement. “And you should ask Makki if he’d mind if you enter his room.”

“I don’t mind!” Hanamaki called out from the living room floor, and at that, Iwaizumi nodded and strode in with Gojira by his heels.


	16. Chapter 16

As Iwaizumi and Gojira explored the small apartment, Oikawa went into the kitchen to busy himself with dinner. Ushijima was still out, and Hanamaki was busy keeping his kids busy.

He went over the short list of food that he’d prepared for their dinner. It wasn't much: Oikawa wasn't that talented of a cook to be able to whip up a large variety of dishes, but he was good enough that what little he made was  _delicious_. 

Hanamaki had demanded something more Western for Christmas. In fact, he’d insisted on fried chicken because his parents had never indulged in that particular tradition, while Ushijima had been utterly ambivalent.

... Well, _mostly_ ambivalent.

He’d only mentioned that he’d prefer it if Oikawa offset the unhealthiness of the chicken by baking it instead.

Oikawa didn’t think Hanamaki would forgive him if he baked the chicken. However, he was pretty sure Ushijima would forgive him if he added a variety of vegetables with the chicken. He also hoped that Iwaizumi was fond of Western-styled food.

He grabbed an apron from the side and pulled it on. Then, he went over to the oven and turned it on, taking a moment to decide what temperature would be best.

180 degrees Celsius? Or 200? He decided it didn’t really matter as long as he kept his eye on the food.

The day before, he’d set some chicken aside to marinate inside of the fridge, and he finally pulled it out to finally bread with panko flakes. He needed eggs with it, though, as well as tempura powder.

He also pulled some vegetables out of the fridge and popped them onto a baking tray. After a moment’s thought, he pulled out some left-over boiled potatoes from the fridge as well and set to chopping them up into rough cubes. It wouldn’t take long to brown them in the oven with the rest of the veggies.

It didn’t take him long to get everything sizzling away merrily.

He enjoyed cooking, really: it was relaxing. Especially when he could hear the sounds of his domestic life beyond the kitchen walls.

Hanamaki was laughing about something while Iwaizumi talked quietly with him. He could hear Gojira scrabbling around the apartment through the clatter of nails against the wooden floor, and the surprised squeals of his children.

He poked his head out of the kitchen to check on why they were yelling, worried that they’d hurt themselves.

Instead, he found that Gojira was surprisingly sweet with Oikawa’s children.

He watched with surprise as the border collie woofed at his kids, rolling onto his back and bouncing about in an attempt to entice the girls into playing with him.

Gojira had been excitable and gentle and friendly the entire journey back from Iwaizumi’s home, but he hadn’t thought about how that would translate to his kids.

The dog didn’t react negatively even when Ryuuko smacked Gojira on the nose, giggling. He just flinched, sneezed, then licked Ryuuko’s hair.

Unlike her sister, Hatsue didn’t seem amused. She crawled towards Oikawa after having contemplated the dog’s foreign features, completely ignoring Hanamaki.

Oikawa left the kitchen to promptly pick her up.

She settled against his chest, fingers curling into his shirt and holding onto him insistently. He kissed the side of her face, smiling fondly.

“You know, I was wondering what kind of father you’d be like considering how you are at the lab,” Iwaizumi remarked offhandedly from his position on the couch, “but you’re surprisingly good with your kids.”

He still had Gojira on his leash, but his grip on it was looser, allowing Gojira to crawl around on his belly with Ryuuko cheerfully exploring his fur with grabby fists.

“I try my best,” Oikawa said a moment later, unable to bring himself to joke when it came to his ability as a father. “They deserve it.”

Iwaizumi nodded, not looking too surprised by Oikawa’s answer. “So, Hana-- uh, sorry, Makki I mean. How long have you known Oikawa?”

“Long enough,” Hanamaki said with a laugh. “We’ve been together since middle school, and just never parted ways since. We’re both from Sendai, you know, in Miyagi? We went to Kitadai--uh, which is Kita--,”

“--gawa Daiichi. I used to go there for middle school too, actually,” Iwaizumi said thoughtfully. “I was vice-captain of the volleyball team when I attended it.”

Hanamaki and Oikawa exchanged startled glances.

“I was captain,” Oikawa said slowly. “Of the volleyball team at Kitadai. Makki and I actually met on the volleyball team. We were in different classes.”

Iwaizumi had a rare look of surprise on his face, and he laughed shortly. “What a coincidence. Next, you’ll be telling me you guys went to Seijou.”

Oikawa burst into laughter, and was treated to the sight of Iwaizumi’s eyes widening in wonder.

“We actually did,” Hanamaki remarked with a note of mirth to his voice. He had a wide grin of excitement on his face as he leaned forward. “Class of 1X; I think they were glad to see the last of us. Though that makes me curious, actually. Ne, Iwaizumi--did you go to Waseda?”

“Well--,”

Oikawa didn’t stick around long enough to hear Iwaizumi’s answer as he ducked back into the kitchen to check on the fried chicken just in case it burned.

He held Hatsue gingerly away from the stove as he poked around the hot oil with a pair of lengthy chopsticks, not wanting her to be splashed by any oil or be exposed to the heat. He couldn’t place her on the counter either, since she could potentially decide to crawl right off the edge.

And so, he stood awkwardly posed in the kitchen, Hatsue as physically far away from the stove as possible while still trying to handle the pot safely.

So preoccupied with juggling his daughter in one arm and managing their food with the other, he missed the sound of the door opening.

He didn’t miss the call of Ushijima’s voice, announcing that he was back home.

“Welcome home!” Oikawa called out distractedly over his shoulder. He deftly flipped a few pieces of chicken around, pleased by the golden brown colour of the crust.

Hatsue seemed to perk up when she caught sight of something, and started struggling in his arms with repeated sounds of excitement. _Ma ah ah!_

“I’ll take her off your hands, Oikawa.” Ushijima’s voice was right behind Oikawa, and he willingly relinquished her into Ushijima’s reliable hands when her weight was taken off of his arm.

He could feel Ushijima’s warmth hovering over his shoulder, and glanced up to see Ushiima frowning at the pot of oil and chicken. Hatsue looked utterly content to be snuggled up to Ushijima’s neck, and babbled meaninglessly into Ushijima’s shirt.

There had once been a time when he'd wished that it could've been Nanako instead. He didn’t know when he’d come to think of this particular sight so fondly, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

It felt  _right_ to see Ushijima holding onto Hatsue, and for her to cling onto him like he was her other parent. He practically  _was_. Oikawa couldn't, and probably would never, regret bringing Ushijima into his pack.

“Blame Makki,” Oikawa said with a laugh. “Not me.”

Ushijima nodded. Dipping in for the customary brush of their cheeks, he then said, “Of course. I’ll leave dinner to you. I’ve placed the drinks upon the counter,” and he left the kitchen.

Oikawa could hear Ushijima’s footsteps across the marble floor, then upon wood, then the sound of him introducing himself to both Iwaizumi and Gojira.

He relaxed when Ushijima didn’t seem outright hostile or upset by Iwaizumi, and had even seemed charmed by the border collie. Ushijima had mentioned once that he was fond of dogs, but he’d never experienced it in person.

It was nice that Iwaizumi seemed to mesh in with his pack.

Oikawa hummed to himself as he jabbed his chopsticks through the oil.

* * *

“How did you know I want this, Oikawa? I _love_ fried chicken,” Hanamaki cooed with more emotion than Oikawa would generally see from his old friend, a wide grin on his face. He immediately grabbed a piece of still-steaming chicken with his bare hands, apparently unable to feel the heat through his fingers. “Thanks so much for cooking it!”

"No problem! I thought I should really try something new and avant-garde for dinner today," Oikawa said wryly. "It definitely wasn't because someone demanded that they wanted chicken all week."

“Smells good,” Iwaizumi remarked, far more demure with his manners as he picked up a piece with his chopsticks. “You cooked everything?”

Oikawa nodded, leaning on his elbow as he watched everyone take their first few bites of food. Hatsue and Ryuuko’s portions had been shredded into smaller pieces and had been set aside to cool down. Currently, the girls were having fun trying to grab hold of slippery pieces of fruit, which kept evading their clumsy fingers.

“I usually cook here. I enjoy it,” he explained briefly. “Go ahead and eat first. Don’t bother waiting for anyone else, Iwa-chan! Oh--and tell me what you think. In detail. I want to know what you like about my amazing cooking!”

Iwaizumi let out a sound of understanding (or was it fond irritation?), and bit into his chicken with an audible crunch.

Beneath the table, Gojira nosed at Oikawa’s feet as if begging for scraps. He could hear Gojira’s bushy tail whipping against the leg of the table.

“I still don’t see the point of getting fried chicken for Christmas,” Ushijima stated. “Wouldn’t it be better to have something more hearty like hotpot? Or yakiniku? It is more warming to eat those than chicken at the very least.”

Hanamaki looked affronted. “It’s because it’s _fried chicken_ ! We _need_ to have it for Christmas! It’s tradition in Japan! Are you even Japanese, Ushiwaka?”

Ushijima had perfected the art of staring at someone blankly while giving off the message that he was judging their intelligence. He pinned Hanamaki with that exact look, and Hanamaki let out a scoff.

Iwaizumi snorted.

“Fried chicken’s alright for Christmas. I haven’t had it homecooked in a while, though,” he remarked, before stuffing his mouth full with another chopstick-load of food.

Oikawa realised that Iwaizumi ate somewhat like a hamster: he filled his cheeks up with large portions of food, took ages to chew through the mouthful, then repeated the process again. It was cute.

He usually spent his lunches with Kuroo, so he was only familiar with Kuroo’s nitpicky way of portioning all of side-dishes into any number of bite-sized chunks that he then used to gauge how to divide his rice. It was interesting to see how differently everyone ate their food, especially when he realised that his children could potentially learn from their table-side mannerisms.

He wondered whether his children would take after Hanamaki’s haphazard manner of shoveling anything relatively cold into his mouth after having taken a regretfully large bite of hot food.

Oikawa blanched at the thought.

Ushijima took a large portion of the salad Oikawa had made as a last-minute addition, ignoring Hanamaki’s exaggerated gagging as he methodically ate through the lettuce first.

“It’s nice to spend Christmas in a place like this, actually,” Iwaizumi said after he’d cleared his mouth of all edible objects. “I was expecting to spend a few hours watching old movies with Gojira, but it’s good to spend time with friends. It might even be better.”

“Is that what we are, then?” Hanamaki teased. “Friends? I’m touched! Does that mean I get to call you Iwa-chan too?” He asked with wide eyes.

Ushijima’s lips curled into a faint smile when Iwaizumi immediately flushed red and denied Hanamaki.

He and Oikawa exchanged amused glances as Hanamaki then took the opportunity to imitate Oikawa and whinge and whine about how cruel Iwa-chan was being at denying their budding friendship.

Oikawa grinned as he snagged Hanamaki’s food from his plate. “Makki, don’t embarrass Iwa-chan. He doesn’t usually make friends like this! It’s a difficult change for him, so you need to give him time to accept that he has friends now!”

Hanamaki promptly stole food from Oikawa’s own plate, looking fairly annoyed that he could only steal a potato cube. “Iwa-chan’s a fully grown man, I think he can defend himself if he needs it.”

Iwaizumi’s redness had turned even darker, and Oikawa could see his brows furrowing in self-consciousness.

Perhaps it was time for Oikawa to change the subject before Iwaizumi started yelling due to his embarrassment.

“Ne, so Ushiwaka-chan, you should tell us about your kiddie years. We found out that Iwa-chan actually went to the same middle- and high-school as us! Of course, he graduated long before we ever even got in, but still, that was really cool to find out!” Oikawa remarked happily. "I don't think I heard if he went to the same university, but anyway, tell us about your time as a short brat!"

Ushijima took the sudden request with grace, and began to talk about his middle- and high-schools.

He went to a nondescript private elementary-school that had a very strong sports culture. He ended up in the volleyball team, and had bloomed as a player even then. He'd then went onto a renowned middle-school for sports and had continued playing volleyball there. Then, he'd found himself with a scholarship to a school called Shiratorizawa, which Oikawa recognised due to the long-standing rivalry it had had with Seijou.

“... and I ended up entering Shiratorizawa’s volleyball team,” he continued, taking a moment to sip at a bottle of barley tea. “It’s quite a coincidence that we’ve all played volleyball. In fact, I believe that we’ve played against Seijou once while you were on the team.”

Ushijima was referring directly to Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi’s eyebrows furrowed again, but this time in thought.

“Shiratorizawa…? You must’ve been a first-year, since I don’t really remember you. I would've been a third year by the time you were in Shiratori. I _do_ remember that we’d been warned about some new hot-shot ace on their team when we played against them during the semifinals of the winter season,” he added nostalgically.

Ushijima’s lips quirked. “I had been projected to become Japan’s national ace had I continued to play after I’d graduated,” he explained to Oikawa and Hanamaki. “I’d received various scholarship offers from a variety of universities to play for them. However, in the end, I decided that continuing my studies would be better than becoming an athlete. I took a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences, then a graduate nursing degree.”

“So you’re a nurse?” Iwaizumi asked, reaching out for a can of beer that Oikawa had brought to the dining table when they’d started eating. “What’s that like?”

“It’s a lot of responsibility. I work primarily in the neonatal unit, though I occasionally take shifts at the pediatrics department when it is understaffed,” Ushijima explained. “Unlike children, neonates are unable to vocalise whatever problems they may have, or may not give any indications of discomfort. It requires substantial vigilance and attention.”

Iwaizumi let out a soft huff. “Huh. Sounds exhausting but rewarding. And you? Makki?” He asked, glancing over at Oikawa’s oldest friend.

Hanamaki had been steadily building his pile of chicken bones during the course of their conversation. Looking up with greasy fingers and lips, he’d put on a sheepish smile as he wiped himself clean with a napkin.

“Well,” he began with a grin, “I’m technically working in a managerial position at this hotel,” he recounted the name of it.

Iwaizumi nodded in recognition, even as he reached out to snag one of the few remaining chicken pieces.

“On paper, I’m a manager-in-training. In _practice_ though, I help out the staff with their duties. Room service, answering calls, dealing with customers…” Hanamaki shrugged. “It’s not too difficult. I usually get to hang out in the lobby next to the bar.”

Oikawa sent Hanamaki a falsely scandalised look. “Makki! Are you saying that you drink on the job?” He gasped.

“Well, Mattsun gets bored and he likes to treat me to drinks,” Hanamaki replied innocently. “We have a no-waste policy at the hotel. I can’t just _not_ drink them after he's made them…”

Iwaizumi snorted. “How have you both not been caught?”

“They’re non-alcoholic. It’s _fine_. And I don’t drink there for free actually; I just have an employee’s discount at the bar.” Hanamaki laughed. “But you’re a… chemical analyst like Oikawa here? Or was that Tendou?”

“No. I’m far more important than that. I’m the investigations department,” Iwaizumi stated seriously.

Even Ushijima raised an eyebrow at that.

“I’m serious. There’s no one else technically working above, with or below me,” Iwaizumi explained, the serious facade breaking into something more casual. “I used to work within the police force for a few years back. I managed to get myself into a junior detective position before long, but after I attended a few seminars, did part-time studies for a biomedical engineering degree, I thought that it might be better for my career if I worked for a private company. Now I get to boss around the people I would’ve had to defer to if I stayed within the system,” he added with satisfaction.

Oikawa’s lips quirked. “I _knew_ Iwa-chan was a total control-freak! He’s constantly telling me how to live my life at work,” he explained to Ushijima. “He makes me button up my lab coat and straighten up my goggles. It’s like Iwa-chan’s my mum!”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have to nag you if you were actually a functional adult.”

“I agree with that,” Ushijima added with a gleam of humour in his eyes.

“So do I.” Hanamaki chorused faithfully.

Oikawa pouted exaggeratedly, and whined about his misfortunes to his children.

Hatsue ignored him completely in favour of painting her tray with sticky fruit juice, while Ryuuko offered him a mashed strawberry in consolation.


	17. Chapter 17

Oikawa watched in fascination as Hatsue and Ryuuko gnawed and gnawed and gnawed on the chicken, but they didn’t seem to like how much they had to chew on the meat to be able to swallow it.

Ryuuko spat it back out onto the table, while her sister continued to stubbornly chew. Hatsue’s eyebrows had furrowed in an alarmingly good imitation of Ushijima when he was confused.

Oikawa grabbed a spare napkin to wad up the masticated remains of Ryuuko’s chicken.

“Ne, I don’t think they’re going to be able to eat the rest of it. Can we give Gojira the scraps?” Hanamaki asked Iwaizumi. “Or is he not allowed to eat human food?”

“I try not to feed him at the table,” Iwaizumi responded. “And I only give him very little human food, normally as a treat. It should be fine if you give him the rest of the chicken. Just make sure to put it in his bowl.”

Hanamaki waved a hand to show that he’d understood, and walked over to where Iwaizumi had set up Gojira’s food bowl. Gojira bounded over with a cheerful bark, clearly awaiting the food that he could smell wafting from the plate in Hanamaki’s hand.

“Do you want tea or coffee?” Oikawa asked belatedly, glancing over at Iwaizumi. “I think we have pudding if you want something sweet for dessert.”

“It’s too late for coffee,” Ushijima said in disapproval. “And you both have work early tomorrow morning.”

“We have decaffeinated coffee, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa reminded with a wry smile.

“Technically, it still has some caffeine in it,” Iwaizumi refuted. “But I’ll have decaf anyway. If Ushijima can look past his morals long enough for me to get a cup,” he added with a smirk.

Oikawa glanced at Ushijima, who shrugged after a long moment of thought.

Clearly, he thought nothing of it that Iwaizumi would drink coffee. Oikawa was sure that he would have put up a larger fight if it had been Oikawa as the one to demand coffee at night.

“Makki? What do you want? And Ushiwaka-chan?”

Makki held up a can of beer. “I have all the drink I need.”

Ushijima shook his head. “Water is enough.”

Oikawa stood up and walked to the kitchen to grab their respective drinks. He could hear Makki sitting down on the chair he’d just vacated and drag Iwaizumi into a conversation about his work.

Ushijima seemed similarly interested, as they kept Iwaizumi talking about the strangest crime scenes he’d seen, as well as how he’d adjusted to his work.

Oikawa set down their cups onto the dining table. “That sounds terribly unhygienic,” Oikawa remarked. “You seriously found _saliva_ samples on the ceiling?”

Iwaizumi’s grin was wry. “We had to get a step-ladder to pick up the samples. We originally thought the liquid to be water damage from the floor above, but it’s protocol to gather everything that can be identified in a lab within the scene. It turned out to be the only conclusive piece of evidence in isolating the suspect. Though it wasn’t as bad as that one time we found multiple jars of urine locked up in the fridge of an apartment where a suspected assault occurred.”

Hanamaki exchanged glances with Oikawa at that.

“I’m glad we didn’t start talking about this over dinner,” Hanamaki remarked with a laugh. “That’s gross. What if you’re _really_ drunk one night and think that that’s a jar of apple juice despite the awful smell?”

Ushijima took a sip of his water. “You probably would hate to hear that that is a norm within hospital laboratories.” He had an amused look in his eye.

Hanamaki looked alarmed. “Drinking piss?”

Iwaizumi snorted into his cup of coffee.

“No. That we keep rows of refrigerators filled with all sorts of samples collected from patients.” Ushijima clarified a moment later.

Oikawa rolled his eyes. “Can we finish up with the piss talk? Let’s talk about something nicer. Like how the yen is crashing down now that Korean electronics are becoming more valued. Or the upcoming solar eclipse. Those are _much_ more riveting a topic to talk about than hospitals stashing away your vital fluids.”

“It’s not just fluids.” Ushijima then remarked, smiling outright.

“Yeah. Let’s not go into that kind of detail, Ushiwaka,” Hanamaki pleaded. “I want to keep my dinner _inside_ of me, not outside.”

Ushijima shrugged. “As you will.”

* * *

It was past midnight by the time Iwaizumi had decided to leave.

“I shouldn’t impose. We have work tomorrow, and I shouldn’t be heading into the office in the same clothes as I wore today,” Iwaizumi added, sweeping his fingers through his hair. “It was nice seeing your friends. Pack, I mean. And your kids,” he added, nodding over to the slumbering Ryuuko on Oikawa’s chest.

“I’m glad you came,” Oikawa admitted as he followed Iwaizumi to the front door. “It was nice to spend some time with you outside of the lab,” he added with a smile.

Iwaizumi lingered at the doorway for a moment, grunting in agreement much akin to the caveman that Oikawa always accused him to be.

“Will you be allowed to drive? You've drank beer,” Oikawa remarked when the silence got a little too long for his own comfort.

The investigator nodded. “I only drank a can. I'm not even tipsy. It shouldn't register at all even if I get tested by a breath analyser." He looked amused by Oikawa's concern. He then glanced behind Oikawa. "Come on, Gojira. Stop trying to take Ushijima’s socks. It’s time to leave.”

Iwaizumi whistled, and the border collie immediately came dashing over, leash clenched in his teeth and vibrating with excitement. Ushijima's feet had been forgotten in Gojira's rush to return home.

Oikawa smiled and bade Iwaizumi goodbye at the front door.

“That’s two of your coworkers down,” Hanamaki remarked once Oikawa had closed the door behind Iwaizumi and Gojira. “When’re we going to meet the rest?”

Oikawa sent Hanamaki a grin. “When we get to meet this Mattsun that you talked about. You’ve never mentioned him before to us. Is he a close friend? Do you _like_ him?” He added with a teasing wink.

Ushijima and Oikawa were treated to the rare sight of Hanamaki looking uncertain. Oikawa’s eyes widened, and a grin appeared on his face.

“Well…” Hanamaki began slowly, looking wary of Oikawa’s expression. “I never needed to mention him. Matsukawa’s a relatively new friend and we’re not that close yet. I’m going off to bed. Night, you two! Don’t forget to brush your teeth!”

He escaped before Oikawa could grab his wrist. Hanamaki then hid in his bedroom, preventing Oikawa from calling him back.

“He _definitely_ likes this Matsukawa. Maybe not romantically, but still, I want to meet him! And see if he’s worthy of being friends with Makki.” Oikawa huffed, and he glanced over at Ushijima. “Do _you_ have someone you want to confess liking?” He then asked, raising his eyebrows.

Ushijima shook his head. “Not particularly. Shall we retire to bed, as Hanamaki suggested?”

Oikawa nodded, shifting his grip on Ryuuko. Ushijima moved to grab a blanket from the top of one of the bookshelves, but Oikawa took hold of Ushijima’s arm before he could bring it down.

“Don’t sleep on the couch tonight. Your back’s got to be hurting after being crammed onto that every night,” he added with a frown. “I still don’t know why we don’t have a futon for you… we should probably get one. And a kotatsu for New Year’s. Can you and Makki do that tomorrow?”

Ushijima blinked. “Of course. But where would I sleep instead of the couch?” He asked.

“With me. My bed’s large enough for the two of us until we've got you a futon,” Oikawa replied. “Makki’s just stingy with his pillows, which is why he probably hasn’t offered his bed to you before.”

Ushijima’s lips curled into a faint smile at that. “He’s clingy in his sleep,” he agreed, following Oikawa as he made his way to his room.

Pausing by the cribs to place Ryuuko in hers, he then tucked a blanket around both of his daughters and made sure their dolls were securely within their reach. Hatsue had fallen asleep face down in her pillow, making him crack a smile.

Oikawa gestured towards his bed absently. “You can sleep on whichever side. I’m going to get changed then brush my teeth and everything.”

Ushijima glanced over at Oikawa. “I’ll use the bathroom first while you do tha,” he stated. He promptly left the bedroom.

Oikawa swiftly got dressed in his sleepwear, yawning quietly as he followed in Ushijima’s footsteps.

He loitered outside of the bathroom, waiting for Ushijima to finish up. He needed to shower, but it was far too late for him to get himself clean. He’d shower in the morning, right before he left for work.

Ushijima left the bathroom with a quiet word of excuse, entering Oikawa’s bedroom once more. Oikawa stepped into the room and stared at his tired reflection through the mirror. He swept his fingers through his hair and admired his own appearance for a moment.

It was longer than it ever had been before. Long enough now that he could tie it up into a ponytail.

Not to say that it was a bad look on him, but he didn't like it. He'd never been fond of personally having long hair.

For all that Oikawa was obviously male and with an extremely masculine build, the length of his hair emphasised the rounded features on his face and made him seem… _soft_. Effeminate, really.

He’d always been conscious that he looked far more like his grandmother back in her prime than either of his parents.

He tugged at the brown locks in dissatisfaction, before he busied himself with washing up and getting himself ready for bed.

He’d have to find time to get his hair cut.

Before long, he was back in his bedroom, closing the door behind him and turning the lights off. He crawled into bed, all too conscious that Ushijima was already lying down beside him, eyes fixed upon Oikawa’s face.

Oikawa pulled his blankets over himself, pausing for a moment to make sure that Ushijima was covered too.

Ushijima swaddled himself up with his portion of the blanket.

“Good night,” Oikawa murmured quietly.

“Yes. Good night,” Ushijima returned just as quietly, before he closed his eyes and relaxed against the mattress.

Sleep was elusive that night, but when he finally managed to sleep, Oikawa would swear that he could smell thunderstorms and peonies in his dreams.


	18. Chapter 18

The next morning was heralded by the irritating buzzing of his phone. It found him tightly wrapped up in strong arms.

December 26th.

He had work.

Oikawa stared blearily towards the wall in front of him, his mind slowly processing the insistent beeping of his alarm, the stirring sounds of his children, the gentle breathing of Ushijima behind him.

Ushijima’s arm was locked around him, and his forehead was pressed up against the nape of Oikawa’s neck. He even had a leg wedged between Oikawa’s, alarmingly intimate due to the proximity of his thigh to the apex of Oikawa’s legs.

Ushijima was a cuddler, apparently. All the more reason to get Ushijima a futon: Oikawa wasn’t really fond of being clung to like he was a plush doll.

The lack of sleep had him slow and lethargic, extracting himself from Ushijima’s surprisingly firm grip with a pained sigh. His eyes felt like they were being stabbed by the light that crept in through the window though the sunlight was still fairly weak at six in the morning.

He could already hear Ryuuko’s familiar snuffling: a precursor to wails if he left her lying there for any longer. She’d wake the entire household up once she got started.

He hit his alarm and stumbled towards Ryuuko’s crib to pull her into his arms.

Calming her down with motions that had long since become instinct, he could feel her tears slowly drying against his neck.

“I’m here, sweetie,” he murmured with a sleep-hoarse voice. “Shh…”

He was steadily waking up. He’d always been quick to recover from his morning lethargy after years of practice at rising early.

Ryuuko settled and curled her fingers into his shirt, her snuffles quieting down into sleepy breathing.

Oikawa could see Hatsue beginning to stir at the sound of Oikawa’s voice murmuring sweet nothings to her sister, and he couldn’t help the fond smile from appearing on his face. Her eyes were squinting and wet when she finally opened them.

“Good morning, baby,” he whispered, mindful that Ushijima was still asleep. “Is it time for breakfast now?”

She let out a soft cry, and he laughed.

“I guess it is. Let’s go, then, shall we Hatsu-chan?”

It took him a little bit of wrangling to get both of his girls settled against his chest, as well as some careful manipulation of the door to make his way out of his bedroom and into the kitchen where their high chairs were.

Hatsue was always first to be put down and secured, since she didn’t struggle or fidget as much as Ryuuko did.

She sat there placidly as Ryuuko fought against him, squealing happily as he wrestled her into the high chair. For a ten-month-old, she was fiercely strong. Eventually, she finally let him buckle the safety belt around her hips, and he let out a sigh of relief.

“Ne, Ryuu-chan, you’ll eventually have to let me do this without complaint!” He exclaimed fondly, rubbing his fingers through her soft tufts of hair. Her hair was growing rapidly, and he could already tell that she was going to inherit his soft curls. Her sister had significantly straighter hair, much like her mother.

Ryuuko let out a defiant cry, kicking her legs fiercely enough to rock her chair.

Oikawa raised his eyebrows. “I’ll take that as an ‘I want to eat now’,” he commented offhandedly to the sounds of Ryuuko smacking her hands against her tray insistently.

It was a matter of routine that soon had him fixing their morning bottles of formula and a cup of coffee for himself. The heavy smell of chemical milk was intruded by the fresh smell of coffee.

Ushijima had remarked that they should start getting the girls used to straws, and had gone out to buy some new baby bottles for them. The bottleheads had been replaced with a plastic straw that was malleable and soft.

He gingerly filled the bottles up. Today wasn’t their first exposure to the bottles, but he wasn’t quite sure how they’d react to them. They’d started crying the first time they had been confronted with straws, unable to figure out how to use them.

Hatsue cheerfully banged her hands on her tray, a habit she’d learned from Ryuuko. She let out a squeal as he placed her bottle in front of her, eagerly gnawing on the straw and attempting to drink it by raising it and tilting it like her previous suckling bottle.

She still hadn’t figured out how straws worked.

Oikawa laughed again, and watched his kids happily attempt to figure out the new contraption he’d set out in front of them. Ryuuko looked progressively upset that she couldn’t drink anything. Hatsue continued to chew as if that would fill her belly.

“Morning,” he then heard at the doorway.

He glanced up to see Hanamaki stumbling into the kitchen. “Makki. It’s good to see you up so early,” he teased.

“Mm… heard the girls screaming and had to come running,” Hanamaki replied tiredly. He looked vaguely hungover. “Glad to see it wasn’t anything serious.”

He then snatched up Oikawa’s coffee mug and stole a large gulp. Three large gulps, in fact. He set the mug back down in front of Oikawa, half-empty now.

“I could’ve just made you a cup,” Oikawa pointed out with a grin. “You didn’t have to drink all of mine.”

“Wasn’t all of it,” Hanamaki refuted, sitting down in front of Ryuuko and squinting at her. She’d plastered her face to the side of the bottle and was trying to suck the milk out through the impenetrable plastic. “... Man, your kids really are dumb,” he then commented with a laugh. “You need to suck it up through the straw, Ryuu-chan.”

Hanamaki poked at the straw. Ryuuko’s eyes followed his fingers, but she ultimately ignored his advice and continued to dribble on the plastic walls of the bottle.

“You have about an hour before you need to leave, right?” Hanamaki asked then, finally letting Ryuuko do exactly what she wanted.

“Mmhm.” Oikawa sipped at his coffee, watching as Hatsue finally started sucking on the straw instead of biting on it. “I should be getting ready, really, but…”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t matter if you went to work underdressed for once,” Hanamaki said in amusement. He then yawned. “You look fine as you are even without all of your makeup.”

“It’s not makeup.” Oikawa refuted. He swiped at his eyes, stifling the urge to yawn as well. Hanamaki’s sleepiness was bringing back his morning lethargy. “So why’re you up so early? For real, Makki.”

“Mmn. Just woke up, that’s all,” Hanamaki replied. “What’s there to eat?”

Oikawa directed him to the fridge, knowing that his friend wasn’t in the mood to cook anything. He watched Hanamaki putter about, grabbing a small plastic box of blueberries, a tub of silken tofu and the ponzu sauce they kept chilled.

“That’s gross, Makki.” Oikawa remarked lightly.

“We’ve had worse back at college,” Hanamaki waved a hand dismissively, a wry grin on his face as he grabbed a pair of chopsticks and began stabbing holes into his tofu to pour the ponzu into. “‘Sides, it’s healthy right? Full of antioxidants and… what’s in tofu anyway? Oestrogens? Isn’t it supposed to be good in small amounts?”

Oikawa grimaced, and decided not to refute Hanamaki’s statements. “Sure. Anyway--I’ve asked Ushiwaka-chan already, but could you and him go out and get a futon today? And a kotatsu too. We’ve been putting it off for so long.”

Hanamaki nodded. “I don’t think that they’ll be able to deliver the kotatsu by New Year’s if we buy it today.” There were only five days until the end of the year, after all.

“It can’t hurt to try,” Oikawa shrugged.

“Mm. Go get ready for work, Oikawa. I’ll watch over the girls and make sure they don’t choke on their straws,” Hanamaki said with a laugh, waving Oikawa off. He also snatched Oikawa’s mostly-finished mug of coffee and chugged what remained of it. “Thanks for the coffee,” he then added cheekily.

* * *

The journey to work on the train had been just as eventful as ever. Packed into the crowded train, he felt like a sardine wrapped up in the brine of the crowd of salarymen around him.

Arriving at his station was a relief, and Oikawa quickly made his way to his workplace, eager to escape the crowd and the cold.

As he clocked in and made his way to the laboratory, he noticed that Tendou wasn't in, and neither was Iwaizumi. They were probably at the police station, he assumed.

He'd have to greet them when they came back. As it was, he could see a pile of samples already waiting for him on his bench.

Oikawa grabbed his lab coat from where it hung on the wall, slinging it on and buttoning it up deftly. Grabbing a pair of goggles, he pushed them onto his face and adjusted them carefully.

“Good morning!” Oikawa greeted boisterously.

Some of his coworkers murmured greetings back. Others looked dreadful, as if they'd drank too much the night before.

Kuroo grinned at him from his position next to Oikawa’s bench.

“Oikawa. You missed out yesterday,” Kuroo said in a teasing way. “It was so much fun and yet you weren't there to experience it.”

“I'm sure I'll survive the grief of having been at home instead, Kuroo-chan,” Oikawa replied with a laugh.

He reached his workspace and absently straightened his collar before pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

Kuroo leaned in.

“... You smell like you were caught in the rain. I thought that it was supposed to be sunny today?” Kuroo asked in confusion when Oikawa had finally gotten comfortable within the lab and had grabbed a row of vials to begin working.

Oikawa blinked at his coworker. “It  _ was _ sunny on my way here.” He trailed off.

Rain?

Kuroo frowned, before realisation crossed his face. “You should probably take showers in the morning then Oikawa! You stink of your partner,” he remarked with a laugh. “Man, rub it in everyone’s faces that you get yourself laid, why don’t you?”

Oikawa realised a moment later that the smell was probably the result of Ushijima clinging to him all night.

He hadn’t had enough time to shower that morning like he’d intended, having gotten caught up while brushing his teeth with staring at his tired, wan face in the mirror.

Oikawa rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to sound so jealous, Kuroo-chan,” he retorted. “I’m sure that if you try hard enough, you’ll find someone willing to put up with you for a night. You’re tolerable for that long at the very least.”

His coworker grinned at him.

“Sounds like you’ve thought about it. Are you offering?” He asked, a flirtatious lilt to his words and an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows.

Oikawa eyed Kuroo for a moment, trying to see if he was being serious. He  _ seemed _ like he was joking, but there was something to the stern line of his jaw that had Oikawa thinking otherwise.

He tapped his fingers against the lab countertop out of nervous habit. “I don’t know. Am I, Kuroo-chan?” He asked, adopting the same lilt that Kuroo was using.

“I wouldn’t mind it if you were. I’d take you up on your offer,” Kuroo replied, the joking curve of his lips never changing at all. The look in his eyes was sharp, however. “Except you’re taken. Aren’t you.”

That wasn’t a question.

Kuroo had raised a hand to point at his own neck where it met his shoulder.

Oikawa mirrored the motion, covering the side of his neck with a hand. He realised that for the first time since he started working at the lab, he wore a shirt that exposed his collarbones.

His mate scar was on display.

It had faded over time, thanks to both distance and various scar creams, but the darkened patch was still stark against his pale skin.

Oikawa raised his eyebrows. “No. I’m not taken.” He said slowly. He lowered his hand. “This is old.”

“Hm.” Kuroo’s eyes lingered on Oikawa’s neck, before he glanced away. “Well, enough flirting, let’s get to work before Akaashi comes over, Oikawa.”

* * *

When the weekend came, Ushijima, Oikawa and Hanamaki spent their days holed up in the apartment, huddled under the kotatsu table that had come as a surprise delivery the day after Hanamaki had bought it.

It was too cold to bring the girls outside, and Oikawa was content with sitting on under the heavy cloth of their new table, watching as Ushijima encouraged the girls to play with their building blocks with Hanamaki.

He could spend hours there, listening to the sounds of his children squealing, babbling in their nonsense language.

Hatsue’s words were starting to sound like legible Japanese. She would mimic the words that any of them spoke with surprising accuracy for her underdeveloped larynx, while Ryuuko was happy to squeak out monosyllables.

As Oikawa tugged his mug of green tea closer, he noticed that Hatsue was in the process of yelling at Hanamaki, sounding surprisingly angry as she tried to grab the block from his hands.

“I think Kuroo-chan likes me.” He remarked suddenly.

“Huh?” Hanamaki glanced up with raised eyebrows.

“Kuroo-chan. Kuroo Tetsurou. My coworker. The one with the cats? Hm... The one who invited us over to his place but Ushiwaka-chan couldn’t go,” Oikawa added, when Hanamaki continued to look blank.

Hanamaki’s expression cleared, and he grinned.

“Oh!  _ Him.  _ The one with the stupid hair.” Well, t hat was certainly a good description of Kuroo.

Ushijima looked mildly curious.

“Why do you mention this?” He asked.

“Just…” Oikawa shrugged. “I thought I should say it. I mean, Kuroo-chan’s not a bad person. Smart and successful. He was gentle with the girls when we went over to his place. I think I could… well, I don’t think it’d be bad to be with him.”

“It’s up to you, but didn’t you say you wanted someone who’d understand that your kids come first?” Hanamaki leaned back, relinquishing the block to Hatsue.

“Iwa-chan’s told me that I should date around a few times already. It’s not like it’d be a lasting commitment.” Oikawa said a moment later. He didn’t say that he missed the connection that came with having a romantic relationship with someone else. “I mean… dating’s to see if someone’s compatible with you, right?”

“I say go for it. You haven’t even looked at anyone after Nanako,” Hanamaki remarked rather knowingly. “I mean, you obviously like Kuroo to some extent, since you’re talking about it with us. You’ve always been bad at liking people, so I think it’s got potential to become something more. I mean, you didn’t even like Nanako at first when you started dating her, and you ended up falling in love.”

Ushijima leaned forward. “Neither of you have told me about Nanako in detail. She’s the mother of the girls, am I correct?”

“She was his mate too,” Hanamaki added.

Ushijima glanced over at Oikawa, looking surprised. “Not merely a girlfriend?”

Oikawa tugged the neckline of his sweater down to expose the faded mark on his neck. He hadn’t thought about the mark in a while, but it seemed that that day was all about reminding him of Nanako.

“She was my mate.” He confirmed softly. “We met in college, in our first year. She and I had the same major, so we were constantly bumping into each other in our courses. We started dating then. I suppose… we were impulsive. We’d been together for three years, and we thought we’d stay together for longer.”

Ushijima nodded mutely, to show that he understood.

“You know what happened after she gave birth to them. Nanako had never given any indication that she didn’t want kids throughout the pregnancy,” Oikawa said softly. “I guess she was trying to love them as much as I did, and she gave all of us up when she found that she couldn’t.”

“Regardless… I stand by what I told you back then, Oikawa.” Ushijima said softly.

Hanamaki glanced over. “What’d you say, Ushiwaka?” He asked curiously.

“She has missed out a lot. I haven’t known you before you’ve had your children, Oikawa, but even I can say for certain that you’ve grown tremendously into a lovely man,” Ushijima stated in that frank manner that he always had.

Oikawa could feel his ears heating up at the blatant compliment. “Ah… right. Thanks, Ushiwaka-chan.”

Hanamaki let out a laugh.


	19. Chapter 19

Oikawa thought about Kuroo that night.

He couldn’t deny that he  _ did _ like Kuroo, but he wasn’t sure if it was purely in a platonic way or not.

Kuroo was a coworker of his who had slowly wormed his way into becoming Oikawa’s friend. It was easy to be with Kuroo; he was intelligent, and spoke in a way that displayed it in a witty way. He was insightful, interesting, and geeky enough that Oikawa felt comfortable talking to him concerning just about anything.

He still didn’t know if that was enough for him to want to reach out and ask Kuroo to go out on a date with him.

In fact, now that he thought about it, Oikawa wasn’t sure if he’d ever asked anyone out in his life.

He’d always been confessed to by his girlfriends back in middle- and high-school. Even Nanako had approached him first, had asked him out with an unflinching smile and a brave set to her jaw.

He’d never taken the first step himself to initiate any kind of romantic relationship.

It was strange to realise this.

He’d never realised just how much turmoil could be generated by the thought of initiating such a relationship. He’d never understood just how much courage and certainty one needed to gather up in order to confess one’s feelings.

Not that he had any feelings towards Kuroo. But still, the sentiment still held up.

Asking Kuroo for a single date would be the catalyst for any potential relationship between him and Kuroo. It was quite possible that one single date would become another, then a whole string of dates that would culminate in a relationship that would then consume Oikawa’s former life.

Oikawa knew himself. He knew that he was the kind of person to fall so utterly and irrevocably that he  _ had _ to consider whatever potential relationship he forged carefully. He fell in love so utterly fast and was  _ fastidious _ in his love, unable to ever fall out of it even after time and distance and circumstance had separated him from his loves.

It was then that Oikawa also realised then just how callous he was, especially to all of his former admirers.

He belittled their courage by never taking their feelings seriously; he’d gone out on a multitude of dates without any kind of conviction or seriousness in his heart. He’d just gone along with the girls without any intention on reciprocating their feelings.

Trailing his fingers through his own hair, Oikawa tugged at a lock of soft brown curls in thought.

Was Kuroo someone that he could potentially see in his pack? Yes.

Was Kuroo someone that he could potentially see sharing his life in the most intimate way possible? Possibly.

Oikawa didn’t like the lack of certainty that came with agonising over the potential start of a relationship.

He tossed and turned on his bed, hearing how his children breathed in their sleep, the distant squeaks and chirrups of Hanamaki’s phone as he played phone games into the depths of the night. Ushijima was in the living room, too distant for Oikawa to hear him.

Oikawa sat up, and ran his fingers through his hair again in frustration.

He’d ask Kuroo out on a date.

He’d have to set it straight that he wasn’t expecting anything too committed.

He wanted things to be casual. He wanted to be able to end it whenever he wanted. He wanted to be able to see others while he was seeing Kuroo. He wanted to be able to pick and choose until he finally found who he wanted, as Iwaizumi had said all those months ago. He wanted, if they ever got to that point, Kuroo to be able to care for and love his kids.

He wanted so many things that he was almost certain that Kuroo would reject him outright.

It would be a certainty that Kuroo would reject him the moment he knew Oikawa’s thoughts.

As such, there would be no use in committing to Kuroo. This date would be a casual thing. Just getting it out of his system; doing stupid things while he was still young enough to do stupid things.

Having finally decided this, he lay back down and closed his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep. It took him an eternity to finally succumb to unconsciousness.

* * *

Monday came back around, and Oikawa was back at the lab.

In his bag, there were two bento boxes, made specially for him and Kuroo. It wasn’t the most innovative of ways to get Kuroo to be with him in relative privacy, but Oikawa decided that it was better than nothing.

He quietly made his way to his usual bench, greeting his fellow coworkers cheerfully when they called out to him. Kuroo was busy with a microscope, fidgeting with the controls as he occasionally peered through the objective lens.

Oikawa played at nonchalance, getting along with his own business until an hour or so later when there was a lull in activity and Kuroo didn’t seem quite as busy.

Kuroo loitered at his bench, cracking jokes with Nami-san, who was apparently taking a quick break in between processing saliva samples.

Oikawa waited until she was absorbed back into her work before he finally made his move.

“Kuroo-chan,” Oikawa murmured softly enough that their coworkers wouldn’t hear him.

He left his bench to stand next to Kuroo, nervousness thrumming through his veins for all that he refused to show it.

Kuroo glanced over at him, a curious lift to his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Have lunch with me today.” Oikawa said firmly, reaching out and daring to place a hand upon Kuroo’s forearm. He’d removed his gloves earlier, but Kuroo’s hands were still covered. He didn’t want to touch Kuroo’s hand if it was potentially coated in chemicals. “My treat.”

Kuroo’s eyes widened momentarily, and lingered upon where Oikawa’s hand touched his arm.

“... Are you asking me on a date, Oikawa?” Kuroo then asked, a strange quality to his voice.

Oikawa hesitated.

The moment of truth.

“Yeah. I am.”

Kuroo looked stunned, and his mouth hung open for a moment. He looked good like this; speechless and voiceless in his shock.

He was usually the type to have words prepared for any occasion, being quick enough to think of something witty to say. This time, he didn’t seem prepared at all.

“I made us both lunch,” he then explained. He was almost nervous, shifting on his feet and glancing away from Kuroo after a moment of staring. He made himself return his gaze to Kuroo; he refused to show anything less than confidence in front of Kuroo.

“... It’s not overcooked this time, right?” Kuroo asked a moment later, seemingly having regained his composure. A smile began to form across his face, charming in its wonder.

Oikawa returned the smile, the nervousness culminating in a fluttering in his gut. “You’ll just have to wait and see, Kuroo-chan!” He exclaimed. “The suspense’s a part of the experience, right?”

Kuroo smiled. “So it is, Oikawa.”

Oikawa drifted back to his bench after that, hyperaware of Kuroo’s presence behind him, the smell of cats and cotton and cologne that permeated the air around Kuroo’s immediate surroundings.

He wondered if Kuroo was just as aware of his own presence as he carefully measured out reagents and labelled plastic bags filled with samples and exhibits from various crime scenes.

It was something that Oikawa had fallen out of practice since Nanako had left, being so aware of another person’s presence.

He told himself that he didn’t hate it; that he’d get used to it once more.

But only assuming that it worked out. It wouldn’t. He probably shouldn’t get used to it.

* * *

It was times like these that it became exceedingly apparent just how big of an age gap he had with his coworkers.

For all that Oikawa tried to act mature, they made it so easy for him to behave childishly. Kuroo especially.

Just moments ago, he’d been gesturing with various globs of rice to explain the differences in gravitational forces between different types of so-called celestial bodies, and how exactly that affected the neighbouring bodies--especially in terms of  _ time _ , because that was still a concept that Oikawa found utterly fascinating, that gravity could affect a whole dimension.

Now, Oikawa had a piece of mackerel staked upon his chopsticks, and was using it as a visual representation of a comet. He had it circle around the air, completely with sound effects, describing the physics behind their cyclical movement.

In a brief moment of dissociation, he realised just how foolish he was acting, and he quickly lowered his chopsticks and cut himself off mid-sentence.

Glancing over at Kuroo nervously, he found himself confronted with a gentle smile on Kuroo’s face--far from the mocking humour he expected.

Kuroo didn’t seem annoyed or anything by Oikawa’s monologue.

In fact, he seemed content. It put Oikawa off, disconcerting him.

“Why’d you stop? You just got to explaining the differences between short and long period comets,” Kuroo prompted, gesturing with a hand.

“A-ah… I thought you might’ve gotten bored,” Oikawa said, feeling oddly bashful.

Kuroo scooped up some rice and popped it into his mouth, chewing as he stared at Oikawa.

Oikawa felt increasingly uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

“Well, I’ve always thought astronomy was fascinating, just never really understood the physics and whatnot behind it. You explain it very clearly.” Kuroo remarked after he’d swallowed his mouthful of food. “I could actually follow what you were saying. Why’d you pick biochemistry when you clearly have an interest in this field?”

Oikawa paused at that.

“... Well, I didn’t think that it would help me in the end. You know, it’s always easy to study things on the side, but university’s about finding a degree that can help you be successful,” Oikawa said finally, finding it almost painful to be so honest. He looked down at his bento. “I don’t regret not taking astronomy… I don’t think I could’ve supported Hatsue and Ryuuko quite as well if I had.”

“You always think of them first.” Kuroo said softly.

“Of course. They’re what I live for.”

Kuroo was silent for a moment, and Oikawa took that moment to stuff a large portion of rice into his mouth. If he took his time eating, occupying his mouth, he wouldn’t have to answer Kuroo immediately.

But the silence dragged on long enough that Oikawa couldn’t continue to chew.

He swallowed the large mouthful, immediately stabbing a portion of tamagoyaki and shoving it into his mouth.

“It’s admirable. Most parents wouldn’t put this much effort into their kids,” Kuroo said finally. He didn’t sound particularly admiring, however. “Aren’t you being a little too obsessive though?”

Obsessive?

“Everyone’s got their own parenting style, but you just seem a little… Well, if you don’t modulate it now, you might end up as an overly controlling parent.” Kuroo remarked thoughtfully, taking Oikawa’s lack of response as a cue to continue speaking. “Just my thoughts, but it’s something you ought to think about, yeah?”

Oikawa’s throat felt excessively dry, and he grabbed his bottle of water to chug his mouthful of food down.

“Aren’t you  _ supposed _ to be this careful with your newborns?” Oikawa demanded, when he’d regained his voice. “I don’t see how being this concerned with your children is a bad thing.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing!” Kuroo was quick to placate. “They’re your first kids, right? I’m just saying--don’t let them become such a forefront in your life that you neglect their own feelings.”

Oikawa wasn’t sure how to take Kuroo’s words. Were they criticism? Valid? Something he could ignore?-- And why the hell was Kuroo lecturing him on how to be a parent while they were on their  _ date? _

Oikawa grimaced, poking at his half-finished bento.

“Anyway, that wasn’t something I wanted to talk about while we were here…” Kuroo said with a laugh. “Things got way too deep and personal,  _ way _ too quickly. I just wanted to say that you’re fascinating, Oikawa.”

A touch on his cheek made Oikawa look up, and Kuroo’s amber eyes were gleaming under the midday sun. The sun cast harsh shadows across his face.

“It’ll be nice if we could continue with this, Oikawa.” Kuroo added.

“I… guess?” Oikawa agreed belatedly. “I like spending time with you. Though, Kuroo-chan, I don’t think I quite like it when you’re--”

“Mind telling me more about dwarf stars? I remember I used to read about brown dwarfs--how big are they actually?” Kuroo interrupted before Oikawa could finish his words. His smile was abnormally wide. If there was a touch of nervousness to his smile, it was enough to convince Oikawa to just go along with his request.

They continued to chat about the stars until the end of their lunch break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than usual, but as I've mentioned in my other fics--I'm trying to get back into writing once more. Sorry for how long it took since the last chapter!
> 
> \---
> 
> Kuroo's got a habit of sticking his foot into his mouth when he likes someone, and Oikawa has no idea how to take his flipflopping behaviour. It's kind of cute that Oikawa's stuck between being offended and confusion w/ the lack of consistency in Kuroo's behaviour, while Kuroo's just screaming inside because he's fucking up so much and he Knows it. All Kuroo wants is to seem really interesting and accommodating for Oikawa's interests, but being naturally honest + provocative's pretty hard to control.

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone wants to chat, I can be found on tumblr at [toorusized](http://toorusized.tumblr.com). :>  
> art of this fic can be found [here](http://toorusized.tumblr.com/tagged/imprints-%3B).
> 
>  **ABO status**  
>  Oikawa Tooru: alpha  
> Oikawa Momoka: beta  
> Hanamaki Takahiro: beta  
> Ushijima Wakatoshi: omega  
> Kuroo Tetsurou: undisclosed  
> Iwaizumi Hajime: undisclosed  
> Tendou Satori: beta  
> Akaashi Keiji: undisclosed


End file.
